WHAT ARE BATS? 
237 
on it with the ferocity of a tiger, again seizing it behind the 
ear, and made several efforts to fly off with it ; but, finding it 
must needs stay within the precincts of the cage, it soon hung 
by the hind-legs to one side of its prison, and, after sucking its 
victim till no more blood was left, commenced devouring it, 
and soon left nothing but the head and some portions of the 
limbs. The voidings observed very shortly afterwards in its 
cage resembled clotted blood, which will explain the state- 
ment of Stedman and others concerning masses of congealed 
blood being always observed near a patient who has been attacked 
by a South African vampire. Such, then, is the mode of sub- 
sistence of the Megaderma .” 
Bats are most widely diffused over the surface of the globe — 
as their powers of flight might lead us to expect. Even 
Australia — so very peculiar in the character of the other beasts 
which inhabit it — possesses bats belonging to both of the bat 
families which are found in our own island. 
But although the whole group of bats, and also that family 
to which most English bats belong — the Vespertilionidce — are 
thus widely distributed, the geographical limits of some families 
of bats are very sharply defined. 
To appreciate these facts it is necessary to be acquainted 
with the geographical areas into which the surface of our globe 
may be divided, each considerable tract of the earth’s surface 
having its more or less peculiar animal population, or fauna, as 
it has its indigenous plants ; that is, its flora . The earth’s 
surface is divisible into six zoological regions. 
1. The Palcearctic region , or Europe, Asia north of the 
Himalaya, and Africa north of the Sahara. 
2. The Ethiopian region , or Africa south of the Sahara, and 
including Madagascar and also Arabia, which geological^ is 
part of Africa. 
3. The Oriental region , or Asia south of the Himalaya, with 
Southern China and the Philippine Islands and Indian Archi- 
pelago as far as the island of JBaly. 
4. The Australian region , or Australia, New Zealand, the 
less remote Pacific Islands, and those of the Indian Archipelago 
from New Guinea up to Lumbock. 
1 5. The Neotropical region , or South America, together with 
tropical North America and the West Indies. 
6. The Nearctic region , or temperate North America and 
Greenland. 
Now the whole group of flying foxes is strictly confined to 
the tropical regions of the Old World and Australia. In the 
same way the family of leaf-nosed bats like those of England — 
the Rhinolophidce — is limited to the Old World, though reach- 
ing there much higher latitudes than do the flying foxes. 
