144 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
The wing-membrane serves yet 
another purpose, for its sense of touch 
is exceedingly delicate, enabling eveu 
blind bats (for bats are not blind usually, 
as is popularly supposed) to avoid 
objects placed in their path. Some 
bats, however, appear to depend also in 
some slight degree upon hearing. The 
sense of touch is still further increased 
by the development of frills or leaf-like 
expansions of skin round the nose and 
mouth, and by the excessive develop- 
ment of the external ears. Delicate 
hairs fringing these membranes proba- 
bly act like the “ whiskers” of the cat. 
Insect-eating bats inhabiting re- 
gions with a temperate climate must in 
winter, when food supplies cease, either 
hibernate or migrate to warmer re- 
gions. The majority hibernate; but 
two species at least of Canadian bats 
perform extensive migrations, it is 
supposed to escape the intense cold. 
The power of flight has made 
the bats independent of the barriers 
which restrict the movements of ter- 
restrial animals, and accordingly we 
find them all over the world, even 
" Photo by Henry King ee as far north as the Arctic Circle. 
AUSTRALIAN FRUIT-BATS But certain groups of bats have an 
In their roosting-places these bats bang all over the trees in enormous numbers,  @Xtr emely restricted range, Thus the 
looking like great black fruits. Although shot in thousands, on account of the Fruit-bats occur only in the warmer 
damage they do to fruit orchards, their numbers do not appear to be reduced : 
regions of the Old World, the Vam- 
pires in America, whilst some of the 
more common insect eating forms are found everywhere. Those forms with a restricted 
distribution are, it should be noticed, all highly specialised—that is to say, they have all become 
in some way adapted to peculiar local conditions, and cannot subsist apart therefrom. It is the 
more lowly—less specialised—forms which have the widest geographical range. There are some 
spots, however, on the world's surface from which no bat has yet been recorded—such are Ice- 
land, St. Helena, Kerguelen, and the Galapagos Islands. 
L 
THE FRUIT-BATS. 
These represent the giants of the 
bat world, the largest of them, the 
Katona, or Maray Fox-nat, measur- 
ing no less than 5 feet from tip to tip 
of the wing. The best known of the 
fruit-bats is the INDIAN Fox-Bat. Sir 
I . E. Tennent tells us that a favour ae The tubular nostrils distinguish this and a species of insect-eating bat from all other 
resort of theirs near Kandy, in living mammals 
Photo by A. S, Rudland & Sons 
TUBE-NOSED FRUIT-BAT 
