160 BATS 



mously extended, and connected with hairless skin as flexible 

 as india rubber, to form a wing for flight. This wing mem- 

 brane is extended on up the arm to the body and the legs, 

 and is continued between the legs and tail, where it forms a 

 supporting parachute in flight. 



The thumb of a bat is very short and free; and its nail is 

 developed as a hooked claw, by the aid of which the creature 

 can comfortably climb about or support itself. The favorite 

 position of a bat at rest is hanging by its feet, head down- 

 ward. 



To be "as blind as a bat" is not to be blind at all, but 

 rather to possess powers of vision that are uncommonly good 

 in semidarkness, or at night, and fairly good even in the 

 broad light of day. When disturbed at midday, all the bats 

 I have ever seen alive (perhaps twenty species in all) have 

 flown away to places of security as briskly and successfully 

 as so many swallows. The eyes of all night-flying bats are 

 small, jet-black, and look like tiny black beads, but those of 

 the day-flying fruit-bats are very much larger in proportion. 



The teeth of bats of different species show wide variation. 

 In nearly all of the four hundred and fifty species, the canine 

 teeth are as strongly developed as in the cat, and in some 

 bats their proportions are really formidable. A careless exam- 

 ination of a bat's skull might easily lead one to believe that 

 it belonged to a carnivorous animal. But the molar teeth 

 will always tell the true story. 



The insect-eating bats, which far outnumber all others, 

 have cheek-teeth which terminate in sharp points, and are 

 specially designed for cutting to pieces the hard parts of hard- 



