965 



CHEIROPTERA. 



CHEIROPTERA; 



was still alive, and attached to the nipple, from which it was with 

 some difficulty removed. It took milk from a sponge, was kept care- 

 fully wrapped up in flannel, and survived eight days, at the end of 

 which period its eyes were not opened, and it had acquired very little 

 hair. All the species of Cheiroptera hybernate. 



Systematic Arrangement. Among the ancients Aristotle says but 

 little about the Bat, and Pliny is considered to have placed it among 

 the Birds, none of which, he observes, with the exception of the Bat, 

 have teeth. (' Hist. Nat.' lib. xi. c. 37.) Again (lib. x. c. 61), he notices 

 it as the only winged animal that suckles its young, and observes on 

 its embracing its two little ones and flying about with them. In this 

 arrangement he was followed by the older of the more modern natu- 

 ralists ; Belon, Gesner, and Aldrovandus, for instance. The former, 

 after expressing some doubt, places it at the end of the Night-Birds, in 

 his 'Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux' (folio, 1555), and it occu- 

 pies the same position in the small 4to (1557), with the following 

 quatrain : 



" La Souri* Chauve est un oisean du nuict, 



Qui point ne pond, ains ses petits enfante, 



Lesquels de laict de ees tetins sustante, 



En petit corps grande vertu reluit." 



The Bat (Attaleph, ' bird of darkness') was one of the unclean ani- 

 mals of the Hebrews (Deut. xiv. 18), where it is placed among the 

 forbidden birds. 



Under the title ' Tespertilio,' the fourth and last genus of his first 

 order, Primates, Linnaeus arranged all the Cheiroptera known to him, 

 and the number of species recorded in the twelfth edition of the 

 ' Systema Natura ' amounts only to six. In the thirteenth edition 

 (Gmelin's) the number of species given amounts to twenty-three. This 

 edition was printed in 1789, and few families afford stronger evidence 

 of the great influx of the new species within the last five-and-forty 

 years than ia to be found in the numbers of Cheiroptera which have 

 been described within that period. Of English bats alone Jenyns 

 enumerates sixteen species, and the general numbers have been 

 increased more than six-fold. Cuvier made the Cheiroptera the first 

 family of his third order of Mammifers, placing them next to the 

 Lemuridw, which close his second order, Quadrumana. Jenyns, in 

 his ' Manual of British Vertebrate Annuals,' places them under the 

 order Primates, which he makes the second in his arrangement of 

 British .itfamma/ta, the Ferae being the first; and they come immediately 

 after the shrews and the hedge-hog. 



The classification of the family we propose to follow, is taken in 

 great measure from the French authors, and adopted by Desmarest 

 and Lesson. Galeopithecus, which is the type of the first tribe of 

 Cheiroptera, according to Lesson, we have removed, in accordance 

 with the opinions of other zoologists, from this family ; and though 

 the Yespertilionidce may be divided into two natural sections, the 

 Insectivorous Bats and the Fruit-Eaters, we have, in consideration of 

 the gradual shades of form when the numerous species are brought 

 under observation, followed M. Lesson's arrangement, with the excep- 

 tion above alluded to. 



VESPEimLIONIDJE. 



1. litiophori, Spix. 



Bats having a membrane in form of a leaf upon the nose. Molar 

 teeth with sharp tubercles. 



1. Sub-Family, Phyllottomatina,. 



Nose-leaf simple, solitary, or unequal, the forefinger composed of 

 two joints. 



PAyttottoma, Geoff. Four incisors above and the same number 

 below. Canine teeth very strong. Nose supporting two nasal crests, 

 one leaf-like, the other like a horseshoe. Ears large. Internal oreillon 

 dentelated. Tongue bristled with papilhc. Tail variable in length, 

 sometimes none. The dental formula is 



Incisors, ; 



canines, - ; molars, - _ 32. 

 1 1 5 5 



a. Tail shorter than the interfemoral membrane. 

 P. crenulatum. The borders of the nasal leaf are dentelated, the 

 end of the tail free. Locality unknown. 



6. No Tail. 



P. periptcillatum, Geoff. Vetptrtitio penpictilaliu, Linn. 

 Vampirug, Geoff, and F. Cuvier. The same character as in the 

 Phyllontomata, with the exception of the dental formula, which is as 



follows : 



Incisors, ; 



canines, : 



11 



molars, l = 34. 

 66 



V. Spectrum. This is the celebrated Vampire Bat of which so many 

 bloodthirsty stories have been told ; the Phylloitoma Spectrum of 

 gome authors, Vampiria mnguisuga of others, the Andira-guaca of 

 Piso, and the Vetpertilio Spectrum of Linnaeus. The nose-leaf is entire, 

 higher than it is wide, although it becomes widened at the base. The 

 following is Piso's account of its habits : " They seek out every kind 

 of animal, and suck their blood. But in Maranhan (Maranham) there 

 is a certain kind of bats which approach by night the naked feet of 



men, and wound them with their rostrum, for the sake of sucking 

 human blood. The bite is so slight and subtle that the wounded do 

 not feel it before the bed covered with blood gives token of the wound. 

 So great a quantity of blood flows from the envenomed bite that it can 



Fhylltmtoma pcrspicilfutiim. 



Teeth of Vampire Bat (rampirtit Spectrum}. 



Vampire Bat (Vampirun Spectrum']. 



only be stopped with difficulty, and the peril is imminent unless a 

 cure by the prescribed remedies be effected. The inhabitants first 

 wash these wounds with hot sea-water, and afterwards apply hot 

 ashes, or even cautery, if the blood be not. stopped." Captain 

 Stedman, who states that he was bitten, thus describes the opera- 

 tion : " Knowing by instinct that the person they intend to attack 

 is in a sound slumber, they generally alight near the feet, where, while 

 the creature continues fanning with its enormous wings, which keeps 

 one cool, he bites a piece out of the tip of the great toe, so very small 

 indeed that the head of a pin could be scarcely received into the 

 wound, which is consequently not painful ; yet through this orifice 

 he continues to suck the blood until he is obliged to disgorge. He 

 then begins again, and thus continues sucking and disgorging till he 

 is scarcely able to fly ; and the sufferer has often been known to sleep 

 from time into eternity. Cattle they generally bite in the ear, but 

 always in places where the blood flows spontaneously. Having applied 

 tobacco-ashes as the best remedy, and washed the gore from myself 

 and my hammock, I observed several small heaps of cougealed blood 



