102 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



different parts of the world in regard to these very curious 

 animals. We scarcely need add, that these several groups 

 are termed by Geoffroy, and their other inventors, genera, 

 though in the present work they are more simply treated as 

 subdivisions or subgenera of the single genus cheiroptera or 

 bat. For the names and characters of these, as well as for 

 the specific descriptions, we refer to the table. 



We shall first speak of the Roussettes (Pteropus.) 



This division of the Cheiroptera, until the time in which 

 M. Geoffroy made his communications to the Ann. du Mus. 

 (1810), was not considered as composed of many species. It 

 was singular enough that the various observations of Seba, 

 of Clusius, of Brisson, of Edwards, and of Buffon, respecting 

 the Roussettes, should have been all attributed to the same 

 animal, which was distinguished by a single specific name, 

 viz., the Vespertilio Vampyrus. 



The researches of naturalists in Egypt, in Bengal, at 

 Timor, and Java, very considerably augmented this little 

 family ; and by affording the means of comparison with such 

 as were already known, and had been taken but for simple 

 varieties of age and sex, proved that a number of these ani- 

 mals existed, sufficiently resembling to constitute species of 

 one genus, and sufficiently distinct to constitute separate 

 species. 



The roussettes are easily distinguished by their gait, their 

 long and conical head, their slender and pointed muzzle, 

 their small and simple ears, and, lastly, by the smallness of 

 the interfemoral membrane. They have little or no tail '•> 

 the posterior extremities are simply bordered, but not 

 united by the interfemoral membrane, and the membrane 

 of the wings extended on the upper part of the legs, and 

 passing the metatarsus above, touches on the origin of the 

 fourth toe. They are the only bats which have the second 



