NEW OR LITTLE-KNOWN BATS 



177 



from the latter group of islands he had only seen « ein Exemplar 

 in dem Leidener Museum, eine vielleicht nur etwas kleinere 

 Varietat oder Art {Rh. keyemis) bildend, woriiber zu entscheiden 

 aber mehrere Exemplare erforderlich sein wiirden. » This is the 

 only description of Rh, keyensis ever published, and vague though 

 it is we have, from a technical point of view, no other choice 

 than to regard the example in the Leiden Museum seen by Peters 

 as the « type » of Rh. keyensis. Whether this specimen still 

 exists, is unknown to me; in Dr. Jentink's « Catalogue systema- 

 tique des Mammifères » (Mus. d'Hist. nat. Pays-Bas XII. p. IGl ; 

 Leiden 1888) no example of « Rh. megaphyllus » , nor any 

 example of a bat allied to megaphyllus , from the Key Islands 

 is registered. 



Later on, Prof. Peters must either have forgotten his remark 

 on Rh. keyensis, or he must have given up his attempt to sepa- 

 rate it from Rh. megaphyllus ; in 1881 (1. s. c.) he records 

 « Rli. megaphyllus » from the Key Islands, without any refe- 

 rence to the hypothetical Rh. keyensis. 



In these circumstances I was much pleased to find among the 

 Rhinolophi submitted to me for examination by Marquis Doria 

 a bat of the megaphyllus type from the Key Islands. It proves 

 to be a distinct species, which may be briefly diagnosed as follows: 



A very primitive member of the Rh. simplex group, appa- 

 rently closely allied to Rh. nanus from Goram, with which it 

 agrees in the form of the sella, but differing, externally, by its 

 smaller size and broader horse-shoe. The skull (incomplete) comes 

 nearest to that of Rh. nanus^ but the teeth are a trifle smaller. 



P3 is external to the tooth-row, very small, blunt, about as 

 high as the cingula of the adjacent premolars, p., and p^ in contact, 

 p- in row, with a minute cusp (scarcely ol^servable without a 

 lens) , pointing inwards. 



At present the following primitive species of the Rh. simplex 

 group are known : — Rh. simplex (Lombok) , Rh. fallax ( New 

 Guinea), and Rh. megaphyllus (Australia, Louisiade Archipelago); 

 in thes3 species the sella is quite distinctly constricted at the 

 middle. Southwest and west of New Guinea we find the constriction 

 gradually obliterated, the lateral margins of the sella becoming 



(1) Knld Andersen, Proc. ZooL Soc. London, 1905, \l. p. 82, pi. IH. fig. 3. 

 Ann, del Mus, Civ. di St. Nat. Serie 3.», Vol. H (10 Maggio 1906). 12 



