1875.] 



Insectivorous Bats. 



17 



18. T. L01TOIMANTIS (J. 31). 



Taphozous longimanus, Hardw. Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. xiv. tab. xvii. p. 525. 



Kangoon. 



This animal is pale fulvescent when young, and becomes gradually 

 blacker with age ; the very old being somewhat of a deep black, but with 

 base of fur white. 



19. T. MELAKOPOGO^ (J. 32). 

 T. melanopogon, Tern. 



[The Indian Museum possesses a specimen of an adult male of this 

 species (with the characteristic black beard well developed), received from 

 Amherst, in Lower Burma.] 



Other species are sure to occur in Burma, and very probably the Cheiro- 

 meles torquatus, Horsfield, a large naked bat akin to Taphozous, with a narrow 

 collar of hair, and the pollux somewhat opposable, which was procured by 

 Finlayson in Siam, and also inhabits Malacca, Borneo, and Java. It emits a 

 highly offensive odour. Cheiromeles conducts to Nyctinomus (see Dysopes), 

 and of this genus JV. plicatus may be confidently looked for, and to 

 the south probably the darker race described as JV. tenuis, Horsfield, which 

 occurs in the Malay Peninsula. Also Nyctinomus johorensis, Dobson,^ 

 from Johore in the Malay Peninsula. Of a larger species, JV. insignis, 

 Blyth,f which Mr. Swinhoe identifies with the African N. ruppellii, and 

 which should therefore occur in other parts of Southern Asia, he remarks, 

 "I have often, on a cloudless evening, at Amoy, seen these Bats flying 

 along high in the air, being easily distinguished by the narrowness of their 

 wings. "When irritated," he adds, " the creature has a habit of exposing its 

 tail, and of sinking its eye into the socket and thrusting it out again. The 

 membrane extending from the tail to the legs is wrinkled, and covers the 

 tail like a glove, so as to slip up or down as the creature wishes to expand 

 or contract its interfemoral wing, or, in nautical language, to shake out or 

 take in reefs. "J In Taphozous the tail withdraws entirely within the 

 membrane. § [I have compared the specimen labelled N. insignis in the 



* P. A. S. B. Jan. 1873, pp. 22, 23; Nyctinomus (Chserephou) johorensis, J. A. S. B. 

 1874, p. 144. 



t Cat. Mam. Mus. As. Soc. Bengl. No 87. 



% P. Z. S. 1870, p. 619-690. 



§ A classification of the genera of Chiroptera, by Prof. W. Peters, is published in 

 the Monatsbericht der Konigl. Alcademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, May 22nd, 1865, 



2 



