VERTEBRATA: MAMMALIA. 765 



SECTION B. FRUGIVORA (Megacheiroptera). In the fruit- 

 eating section of the Cheiroptera are only the Pteropidcz or the 

 Fox-bats, so called from the resemblance of the head to that 

 of a fox (fig. 444, B). The head in these bats is long and 



Fig. 444. A, Head of Vampire-bat (A lectors ater) ; B, Head of Fox-bat 

 (Pteropus personatus). (After Gray.) 



pointed. The ears are simple and of moderate size, and the 

 nose is destitute of any appendages. Cutting incisors and 

 canines are present in both jaws, and the Fox-bats do not 

 altogether refuse to eat small birds or mammals. They live, 

 however, almost exclusively upon fruits, and the molars are 

 therefore not cuspidate, but are furnished with blunt tubercular 

 crowns. The tail is very short, or is entirely absent. The 

 inter-femoral membrane is much reduced in size; and the 

 index (as well as the pollex) is almost always clawed. The 

 Pteropidce are amongst the largest of the Bats, one species 

 the Pteropus edulis, or Kalong attaining a length of from four 

 to five feet from the tip of one wing to that of the other. The 

 Pferopidce are especially characteristic of the Pacific Archi- 

 pelago Java, Sumatra, Borneo, &c. but they also occur in 

 Asia, Australia, and Africa. They do not occur, however, in 

 either North or South America. 



As regards the distribution of the Cheiroptera in time, the 

 order dates from the Eocene Tertiary, where we find the re- 

 mains of Vespertilionidce, essentially similar to existing forms. 

 Professor Marsh has also detected the remains of the first 

 American Tertiary Bats hitherto discovered in the Eocene of 

 Wyoming. No fossil remains of Pteropidce are known, but 

 the bone-caves of Brazil (Post-pliocene) have yielded traces 

 of several species of Phyllostomidce. 



