1841. J Description of three Indian species of Bat. 973 



frontal depression above the eye, and another forwards from the lower 

 margin, which is furnished with a lobe corresponding to the *' drop" of 

 the human ear, only it is not pendent, and the base of it is even with the 

 mouth ; the conch usually lies flatly outwards, the anterior margins of 

 the two ears forming a straight transverse line, and their medial part 

 collapses into plaits, which are obliquely transverse with the tip, as is more 

 particularly noticeable in the living animal ; within the conch is a short 

 hatchet-shaped tragus, nearly as broad again atthe extremity as at the base. 

 The wings in this genus are long and rather narrow, the short thumbs 

 being furnished at base with a small and slightly flattened cartila- 

 ginous cushion, which is more or less observable in other Bats, and is 

 only more developed in certain Dysopodes, or (according to Mr. Gray) 

 the young of these, supplying the trivial character upon which Spix 

 founded his subdivision Thyroptera : the innermost digit is connected at 

 base to part of the fore-arm by a small internal membrane, forming a 

 little sac, whence the name Saccopteryx of M. lUiger. The tail of these 

 Bats is more or less elongated, and is enveloped at base in the inter- 

 femoral membrane, from the upper surface of which, about half way 

 from its margin, the extremity protrudes in proportion as the membrane 

 collapses, to a variable extent (apparently) in different species, curling 

 round backwards and upwards in the altitude of repose, and becoming 

 sheathed as the membrane is expanded. Another curious character, more 

 or less developed in the different species, and chiefly in the males, con- 

 sists in a large gular sac, the orifice of which is anterior and transverse ; 

 on the chin are two slight, parallel, and nearly contiguous, longitudi- 

 nal folds of the skin (which in certain species, are rudimental), each sub- 

 dividing into two smaller folds posteriorly, the channels between which 

 lead to the sides of the throat- sinus ; the interior of the latter would 

 appear to be glandulous, though I have been able to perceive no trace 

 of secretion. On the middle of the upper lip is a slight duplicature ; 

 and the top of the lower lip is conspicuously reflected, having a mesial 

 groove ; the mouth is cleft to beneath the forepart of the eye. These 

 animals, according to Cuvier, have one pair of upper incisors, though 

 often none, and the latter is the case with five specimens before me, ap- 

 pertaining to three species ; they are probably pushed out by the growth 

 of the permanent canines (as in various other Bats), which of course fol- 

 lows after some time the renewal of the properly decsiduary, or " milk" 



