i66 



The Living Animals of the World 



The wing-membrane serves yet 

 another pm'pose, for its sense of touch 

 is exceedingly delicate, enabling even 

 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 hear- 

 ing. 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 ex- 

 cessive development of the external 

 ears. Delicate hairs fringing these 

 membranes probably act like the 

 " whiskers " of the cat. 



Insect-eating bats inhabiting 

 regions with a temperate climate 

 must in winter, when food-supplies 

 cease, either hibernate or migrate to 

 warmer regions. 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 

 terrestrial animals, and accordingly 

 we find them all over the world, even 

 as far north as the Arctic Circle. 

 But certain groujjs of bats ha\e an 

 extremely restricted range. Thus the 

 P"ruit-bats occur only in the warmer 

 regions of the Old World, the 

 Vampires in America, whilst some of tlie 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 Iceland, St. Helena, Kerguelen, and 

 the Galapagos Islands. 



The Fruit- hats. 

 These represent the giants of 

 the bat world, the largest of them, the 

 Kalong, or Malay Fox-bat, measuring 

 no less than 5 feet from tip to tip 

 of the wing. The best known of the 

 fruit-bats is the Indian Fox-j3at. Sir 

 J. E. Tennent tells us that a favourite 

 resort of theirs near Kandy, in 



Id their 

 looking Jilve 

 damage they 



AUSTRALIAN FEU IT-BATS. 



rousting-places these bats bang all over the trees in ennrrnoirs nnM]bcr.s, 

 gieat black frnits. Altliough shut in thousands, on acconnt of the 

 do to fruit orchards, their rurnhers do not appear to be reduce!. 



rhoto hij A. S. llaiUaad i- Sons. 



TUBE-KOSED FKUIT-B.AT. 



The tubular nostrils distinguish this and a species of insect-eating bat from all other 

 living raaninials. 



