CHAPTER IV 



Order II. Chiroptera (Bats) 



THE title of the order with which we are about to deal 

 is composed of two Greek words, the former meaning 

 a hand and the latter a wing ; and the Chiroptera are there- 

 fore ' hand-winged ' animals. The early naturalists often 

 experienced difficulty in classifying various animals, but 

 none caused more controversy than these strange, weirdly- 

 formed creatures. Because they could fly some assigned 

 the Bats to a position among the birds, while others claimed 

 that they were quadrupeds ; but modern investigations have 

 proved them to be mammals, clearly separated from any 

 other group of animals. 



' Flittermouse ' was a common old English synonym for 

 the Bat, and the Icelanders gave it the very expressive title 

 ' Leather-flapper.' Most Bats are very mouse-like in appear- 

 ance. 



Expressed in simple language, a Bat is a mammal pro- 

 vided with true wings, with which it is able not merely to 

 propel itself through the air for a longer or a shorter 

 distance, but to fly like a bird by beating the air with its 

 anterior members. At the end of the Anthropoidea was 

 described the Colugo, which in common with the Flying 

 Squirrel and the Flying Phalanger has the skin of the flanks 

 extended in a manner capable of sustaining the animals, 

 very much in the manner of a parachute, in an extended 

 leap through the air. But Bats possess the power of true 

 flight : they move through the air with ease, and in pursuit 

 of their insect-prey wheel and double and circle about 



79 



