THE INDIAN FLYING-FOX 



(Pteropus medius) 



THE order of Bats, known scientifically as Chiroptera hand-winged 

 animals, their wings being simply the webbing between immensely- 

 elongated fingers, continued along the sides of the body is divided 

 into the Megachiroptera or Big Bats, and the Microchiroptera or Little 

 Bats. To the latter division belong the Bats we are accustomed to see, 

 and many other types found all over the world except in the Arctic 

 and Antarctic regions, but the former only includes the family of 

 Flying-Foxes (Pteropodida), fruit-eating Bats found in the warm regions 

 of the Old World, from Egypt to Australia and the Pacific. 



Of these the Indian Flying- Fox is a good example, and is the best 

 known, being a very familiar creature in India, and often seen in 

 menageries in other countries. It is one of the largest of Bats, measur- 

 ing about four feet across the expanded wings, though the body is 

 considerably less than a foot in length; there is no tail, and the skin 

 which in ordinary Bats is found between the hind-legs, enclosing that 

 member, is in the Flying-Fox confined to a flap along the inside of each 

 leg. The toes are armed with powerful claws, and the thumb, which, 

 as in all Bats, takes no part in the formation of the wing, and has to 

 do duty for a whole paw, is also powerfully clawed. There is a 

 minute claw also on the forefinger, and this little claw is one of the 

 distinctive points of the Flying-Foxes, being found in nearly all of 

 them, while in the other Bats it is absent. The ears, too, in the Flying- 

 Fox, although of very ordinary form, are notable for having the margin 

 of each joined at the base, a peculiarity not found in the other Bat 

 families, with all their eccentricities in the way of ears. 



The head, as the illustration shows, is singularly like that of a Fox 

 in miniature, and the small incisors and large canines add to the resem- 

 blance to a carnivore ; but the grinders are noticeable for their grooved 



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