353 GEOGRAPHICAL AXIA GEOLOGICAL MSTRIBmOX. 



former mth abovit fifty species, and tho latter with about forty, 

 apprcwch cosmopolitanism. Of the Emballontu'ida; but a sdngle 

 gt'uus, Xyotinouui*, is common to both hemispheres, and its early 

 differentiation is sliown in the fact that, while all the Aiueriean 

 forms are closely related to one anotlier, they depart widely I'rom 

 tlieir Euix)pean representatives. 



The Phyllostomida\ or sample leaf-nosed bats, which comprise 

 the vampyres, number upwanls of fifty species, all of them very 

 closely related, and, with one exception — Trachyops cirrhosus, which 

 hss been noted from the Bermtidtvs (and also dovibtfully recorded 

 from So\ith Csvrolina) — confined to tlie Neotropical ivalm, over tho 

 forest-covered tniets of which they range from Mexico to about tho 

 thirtieth parallel of sotith latitude,* Vampynis siK'ctrum, the best 

 known species of vampyre — whose hr.bits appear to be mainly 

 fnigivorous — and the laro-est of all the American btrts, is distributed 

 over the greater portion of the tract eoveivd by the eutiiv family. 



Of the strictly Old World families of bats the Pteropodidm, 

 fruit-eating- bats or flying-foxes, are specifically the most numerous, 

 comprising about seventy species, distribtited between the Axis- 

 tralian. Oriental, and Ethiopian ivnlms, and some of the intervening 

 tracts, with a pi'eponderanco of species in the firet-nwned region. 

 They are ix>stricted almost wholly to the region of the tropics, 

 where a continuous supply of tree-fruits might be obtained; no 

 species has thus far been noted from either Xew Zealand or Tas- 

 mania, Cynonycteris, alone of the gcmra, has the distribution of 

 the entire family. The most largely represented genus is IHeropiis, 

 which includes more than one-half of all the i-ecognised species be- 

 longing to the family ; its range extends from the Comoro Islands 

 on the west to the Navigators' Islands, in the Pacific, on the east, 

 and through much the greater portion of the Oriental and Aus- 

 tralian regions ; but few of the island groujis of the Pacific — 

 Sandwich Islands, Low Archipelago, Gilbert's and ElHce's gnmps 

 — ;ire deficient in the members of this geinis, to which the largest 

 known fonns of bats belong, Pteropus edulis, which inhabits the 

 islands of the JIalay Archipelago, measures five feet in expanse of 

 wing. Only one species, Pteropus medius, the common flying-fox, 



♦ Macrotna Onlitornious or WntiTlunisii just enters the I'nitod St;iti's (Fort 

 Ynma, OnUlornin), but :it n poii\t which uioro properly balonga totlio Noo- 

 tropioal tluui to tho lloliuvlio traot. 



