III. On a Remarkable Species of Pteropine Bat. By E. T. Bennerr, Esq., F.L.S., 
Sec. Z.8. 
Communicated October 13, 1835. 
A BAT that has just come into the possession of the Society, exhibits a character so 
striking as to authorize its being especially signalized: and it is with the view of di- 
recting general attention to so curious a creature that I offer a description and figure 
of it. To these I shall add occasional remarks on other animals with which it is con- 
nected by some of the more remarkable points of its external organization. 
On the first glance at this Bat the attention is arrested by a singular projecting patch 
of long white hairs placed on each side of the neck in front of the shoulders, and look- 
ing almost like a mass of white feathers. 'They seem so unlike the rest of the fur and 
so different from any appearance usually observed in Bats, as to excite a suspicion 
that they are a deceptive introduction into the skin ; an artificial attempt at the creation 
of aremarkable object, designed to be mistaken for a natural body of singular interest, 
yet having no real existence in nature. A close examination is induced by this suppo- 
sition ; and it then appears that these curious appendages really form part of the ani- 
mal, and that, however incongruous their appearance and however uncommon their 
occurrence, they require to be considered with reference to it and to its congeners. 
The oval patch on either side of the neck occupied by the white and peculiar tufts 
measures about an inch in its longest diameter, which is from before backwards. The 
skin is in this part altogether destitute of the ordinary hairs of the body, and has no 
covering but that which is peculiar to the spot itself. This consists of straight, soft 
hairs, which diverge in all directions as from a common centre. Those that are 
situated towards the middle of the patch are longer than the others, and are partly 
directed forwards and partly backwards, having generally a dorsad inclination: their 
length is twice as great as that of the longer hairs of the body. The mode of their in- 
sertion into the skin is unlike that of the ordinary fur: in the latter, the hairs are im- 
planted either singly or a few only near each other, so that the covering by them be- 
comes nearly uniform ; in the patches on the sides of the neck the hairs are gathered 
together into bundles, and are inserted in fascicles into the skin, leaving between the 
several minor tufts interspaces altogether naked. Each of the separate fascicles con- 
tains probably from fifty to sixty hairs: and the approximation of these at their base 
and their divergence towards their tips might almost be regarded as bearing a distant 
analogical resemblance to the quill and the dilatation of the feather of a bird. The same 
