31 



CHAPTEE I. THE BATS. 



The list of Bats as given by the older writers on British 

 zoology now requires some revision ; and we find the 



present number to be at the outside four- 

 c,->A^iAc teen, while a fifteenth, the particoloured bat, 



is included on slender evidence. Their posi- 

 tion, too, has undergone change, for while the older natu- 

 ralists regarded them as the link between mammals and 

 birds, they are now more correctly placed between the 

 lemurs and insectivora. All British bats are truly insec- 

 tivorous, the large fruit-eating kinds, so common in India, 

 Australia, and Madagascar, being absent from this part of 

 the world. ^ They are particularly fond of moths. Their 

 teeth are therefore cusped, and vary in number from thirty- 

 two to thirty-eight. It is also believed that they drink 

 regularly. The hairless membrane that joins the tail and 

 fingers is worked by powerful muscles, so that these crea- 

 tures are virtually winged and fly much as birds, their 

 steering, which is remarkably sharp, being achieved by 

 the aid of the inter-femoral membrane that encloses most 

 of the tail. 



1 Roughly speaking, the bats of temperate regions are almost ex- 

 clusively insectivorous, Avhereas tropical kinds {/'/.eropus, &c.) live on 

 fruit, and some of the larger species suck the blood of sleej^ing 

 mammals. From some islands where winged insects are not con- 

 spicuous (Iceland, Kerguelen, &c. ) there are no bats. 



