28 MAMMALIAN GALLERY. 



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between 4 and 5 feet in spread of wing. One of this group, 

 Pteropus medius, is extremely common all over India, doing an 

 enormous amount of damage to the fruit-gardens, to pillage which 

 it is said they will make nightly expeditions of from ten to 

 twenty miles, returning each morning to their accustomed sleeping- 

 places. In striking contrast to these great animals is the tiny 

 Carponycteris minimus, a true Fruit-Bat, but no bigger than a 

 Mouse, which inhabits South Asia and Australia. Another notice- 

 able species is the Long-nosed Bat (Harpyia cephalotes) , whose 

 nostrils are elongated into peculiar tubes, the special use of which 

 still remains to be discovered. There are about 70 species of 

 Fruit-Bats, spread over all the tropical parts of the Old World. 



The Insectivorous Bats are much more numerous than the 

 Frugivorous, numbering about 350 species, distributed over the 

 whole world, and extending even to remote islands in the Pacific, 

 where they are the only indigenous Mammals. With but few ex- 

 ceptions they are of dull coloration. Though in other respects 

 much alike, they present striking modifications in their facial cha- 

 racters, many of them developing on their muzzles very remark- 

 able structures, known as nose-leaves, which seem to be tactile 

 organs of extreme delicacy, and which are of wonderful variability 

 both in shape and size (see fig. 11). 



Fig. 11. 



Mountain Horseshoe-Bat of India (Rhinolophus luctus). 



Of the Insectivorous Bats exhibited, the following may be 

 noticed : The Great Nose-leaf Bats (Megaderma) of Africa, Asia, 

 and Australia^ which are the analogues among Bats of the Carni- 

 vora^among Mammals generally, preying habitually on the smaller 



