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Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. ' [Vol. XXXVII, 



sectivorous bats. The mandible with its long, interrupted tooth-row is 

 slender and weak, and is operated by rather poorly developed jaw muscles. 

 The canines are fairly long, rather dull, and often round in transverse 

 section, fit for wrenching off, cutting open the fruits, or holding them in 

 the mouth during flight. Their cheek-teeth, with crowns often narrow, 

 are rather degenerate and are chiefly of assistance in separating the pulp 

 from the fiber, as in mangoes, or in squeezing out juices from the pulp. 

 Their food requires little or no mastication. 



The very extensible tongue is beset above with gustatory and tactual 

 papillae. The latter are often arranged in a patch near the tip, tridentate 

 and stiff enough to serve as a rasp (Fig. 16), helpful in gathering pulp and 

 juices from inside the fruits after their outer cover has been torn. In some 

 species juices of fruits are also sucked by means of extensive pouches under- 

 neath the lips (Fig. 18, p. 503). 



The digestion must be extremely rapid (p. 499) and the quantities of 

 fruit or their juices consumed large, hence the great patches of apparently 

 fresh pulp, together with the remnants of spoiled fruit, underneath boughs 

 that seem to be used as habitual dining-halls (pp. 501 and 504). 



The destruction they cause may be considerable; but by transporting 

 these fruits, sometimes to a distance of several hundred yards, before feed- 

 ing upon them, they naturally distribute their seeds. These sprout readily 

 and grow into trees under the favorable influence of the moist climate. 

 Valuable fruit-trees are planted in this way beyond the confines of the 

 cultivated area of the posts. Since the larger species (Hypsignathus monstro- 

 sus, Eidolon helvum, and Epomophorus franqueti) habitually move fruits 

 as large as figs or guavas in fairly great quantities we can easily imagine 

 what an important role fruit-bats play in the propagation of certain fruit- 

 bearing trees throughout the West African rain-forest. It may even surpass 

 any similar agencies of monkeys and birds that usually receive all the credit 

 in this line. Eidolon helvum with its flocks of thousands dropping into a 

 country in search of ripe fruit should certainly be an effective factor for the 

 dissemination of many forms, such as wild figs (Ficus). 



In the West African province they cause no devastation whatsoever to 

 native plantations, since the negroes there plant not a single indigenous 

 fruit-tree. Palm-nuts are not attacked, in fact the tastes of these fruit-bats 

 coincide somewhat with those of the human race. Sweetish, acidulated, 

 or juicy pulp are their chief aim, and therefore the fruits of trees imported 

 by Arabs or white men are especially liable to be attacked. It is true that 

 they are very fond of plantains and bananas, but these are cut when in a 

 green state and are then absolutely unpalatable to fruit-bats. Only after 

 they have ripened underneath the roof of native huts are they stolen by 

 these tiny gourmets. 



