x. FLITTERMICE. 145 



If these vespertilione bats are scarcely to be called 

 beautiful in face and feature, the horseshoe bats must be 

 regarded as positively ugly. The face carries a curious 

 nasal appendage or nose-leaf. This consists of a horse- 

 shoe-shaped membranous expansion which sweeps round 

 and includes the nostrils. From the ends of the horse- 

 shoe there passes on to the forehead a tapering lance- 

 shaped frontal leaf. In the middle is a central leaf, some- 

 what flattened from side to side, and projecting forwards. 

 The whole gives to the face a most terrific and uncanny 

 aspect, which is intensified in certain foreign species, such 



HORSE-SHOE BAT, LONG-EARED BAT. 



as the mourning horse-shoe bat of the East, and the trident 

 bat of Persia. 



The occurrence of these membranous expansions of nose 

 and ear is particularly interesting. For it would seem 

 that the peculiar modification of the integument necessary 

 to produce a wing-membrane has carried with it a tendency 

 for the skin in other parts of the body to vary and to run 

 into membranous expansions. 



These membranous expansions wings, ears, and nose- 

 leaves are peculiarly sensitive to touch. For it would 

 seem to be partly by this sense, and partly, according to 



I, 



