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Show 1905.] OF THE GENUS RHINOLOPHUS. 1 21 I I . T h e R h in o lo ph u s l e p id u s G r o u p . Diagnosis. Basioccipital, between cochlese, not unusually narrowed. Posterior connecting process projecting and pointed. I include in this group:-(1) All the forms with projecting connecting process comprised by Dobson under the technical name " Rh. minor " ; their close relationship is unquestionable; their differences will be pointed out below ; (2) Rh. acuminatus and its allies, which are scarcely more than giant forms of the lepidu.s-type; (3) the Rh. blasii and (4) Rh. euryale sections, peculiarly modified Ethiopian and W. Palaearctic representatives of the subbadius-type. The two former sections only will be reviewed below ; the two latter will be briefly mentioned in the " General Remarks" on the group (p. 135). Text-fig. 22. CL b C d Side views of nose-leaves, showing the principal forms of the connecting process in the Ph. simplex group (a) and the 1th. lepidus group (b, c, d). a. Ph. borneensis typicus; b. Ph. cornutus pumilus ; c. Ph. monoceros; d. Ph. empusa. As this is a first attempt to disentangle the many different forms hitherto confounded with Horsfield's Rh. minor, the following preliminary remarks are necessary, as a general guidance :- The first of the above-named sections (the " lepidussQctiow "), viz., all the small Oriental and E. Palsearctic Rhinolophi which have the connecting process projecting and pointed, fall into three show, at a glance, the probable interrelations of the species. As sufficiently emphasised in the foregoing pages, I am far from being of opinion that ferrum-equinum is derived from the now-existing affinis (or capensis from rouxi, or stheno from borneensis, &c.). But ferrum-equinum has originated from a Bat which had the more essential characters of affinis (besides several others, unknown to us). The technical names in the diagram are, in other words, to be taken, not in their strict specific sense, but as names of the sections (" types," " branches " ) of which the species, as we now see them, are the surviving representatives. |
