166 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



The wing-membrane serves yet 

 another purpose, for its sense of touch 

 is exceedingly delicate, enabling even 

 blind bats (for bats are not blind usually, 

 as is popularly supposed) to avoid 

 objects placed in their path. Some 

 bats, however, appear to depend also in 

 some slight degree upon hearing. The 

 sense of touch is still further increased 

 by the development of frills or leaf-like 

 expansions of skin round the nose and 

 mouth, and by the excessive develop- 

 ment of the external ears. Delicate 

 hairs fringing these membranes proba- 

 bly act like the " whiskers " of the cat. 

 Insect-eating bats inhabiting re- 

 gions with a temperate climate must in 

 winter, when food supplies cease, either 

 hibernate or migrate to warmer re- 

 gions. The majority hibernate ; but 

 two species at least of Canadian bats 

 perform extensive migrations, it is 

 supposed to escape the intense cold. 



The power of flight has made 

 the bats independent of the barriers 

 which restrict the movements of ter- 

 restrial animals, and accordingly we 

 find them all over the world, even 

 as far north as the Arctic Circle. 

 But certain groups of bats have an 

 extremely restricted range. Thus the 

 Fruit-bats occur only in the warmer 

 regions of the Old World, the Vam- 

 pires in America, whilst some of the 



more common insect eating forms are found everywhere. Those forms with a restricted 

 distribution are, it should be noticed, all highly specialised that is to say, they have all become 

 in some way adapted to peculiar local conditions, and cannot subsist apart therefrom. It is the 

 more lowly less specialised forms which have the widest geographical range. There are some 

 spots, however, on the world's surface from which no bat has yet been recorded such are Ice- 

 land, St. Helena, Kerguelen, and the Galapagos Islands. 



THE FRUIT-BATS. 



These represent the giants of the 

 bat world, the largest of them, the 

 KALONG, or MALAY FOX-BAT, measur- 

 ing no less than 5 feet from tip to tip 

 of the wing. The best known of the 

 fruit-bats is the ho, Fox- BAT . Sir ''^"-'NOSED PRUIT-BAT 



:llS US that a favourite Thg tMar ngstri i, dMnguhb this and a sf>ecles O f i nsect . ea tin S bat from at 



resort of theirs near Kandy, in n-ving mammals 



Photo by Henry King] [Sydney 



AUSTRALIAN FRUIT-BATS 



In their roosttng-places these bats bang all c-ver the trees in enormous numbers, 

 looking like great black fruits. Although shot in thousands, on account of the 

 damage they do to fruit orchards, their numbers do not appear to be reduced 



