72 
MAMMALIA. 
Two or three species are known, of moderate but not large size.* One was taken in the act of sucking blood 
from the neck of a Horse, by Mr. Darwin. It is probable that their external similitude to the Phyllostomes has 
occasioned the latter to be accused of a sanguivorous propensity, for which their structure seems to be at 
most but partially adapted, while that of the present genus is obviously expressly designed for this mode of life. 
Compare the figm-es given of the dentition of the two genera.] 
In the second grand tribe of Bats, the index has only one bony phalanx, while all the other fingers 
have two. This tribe also requires to be divided into several subgenera. 
The Megaderms {Megaderma, Geof.) — 
Have the nasal membrane more complicated than in the Phyllostomes ; the tragus large and most 
commonly bifurcated ; the conch of the ears very ample, and joined together on the top of the head ; 
the tongue and the lips smooth ; interfemoral membrane 
entire, and there is no tail. They have four incisors below, 
but none above, and their intermaxillaries remain carti- 
laginous. [Their wings are remarkably ample, the whole 
cutaneous system of these animals being excessively de- 
veloped. 
Four species are known ; two from Africa, the others from 
the Indian archipelago. One of the former (M. frons, fig. 14) 
has the body covered with long hair, of most delicately fine 
texture ; it constitutes the division Lavia of Gray.] They are 
distinguished by the figure of the leaf, like the Phyllostomes. 
Fig. 14. — Megaderma Irons. 
The Khinolphines {RMnolophus, Geof. and Cuv. \_Noctilio 
Bechst.]), vulgarly termed Horse-shoe Bats. 
These have the nose furnished with very complicated 
membranes and crests resting on the forehead, and al- 
together presenting [more or less] the figure of a horse- 
shoe ; their tail is long, and placed in the interfemoral 
membrane. They have four incisors below, and two small 
ones above, fixed in a cartilaginous intermaxillary. 
Two species are very common in France [and found sparingly 
and locally in England!],— ferrum-equinum, Lin., or Rh. 
bifer, Geof., and Vesp. Mpposideros, Bechstein. They both 
inhabit quarries [cathedrals, &c.], where they hang solitarily [?] suspended by the feet, and enveloping them- 
selves with their wings, so that no part of their body is visible. [They differ chiefly in size, but in this con- 
siderably ; the larger measuring 13 inches across, the other 8^ inches. 
More than twenty species are known, all from 
the eastern hemisphere. They fall under two 
divisions, of which the extremes are shown in 
the accompanying representation (fig. 15) ; but 
the majority are of intermediate character, like 
the two which inhabit Europe. Those with 
membranous crests have the ti’agus distinct, 
and sometimes considerably developed ; the 
others have no separated tragus, and compose 
the divisions Hipposidoros, Gray, (identical with 
Phillorhina, Bonap.) and Asellia, Gray : Ariteus 
of the same systematist referring to a member of 
the former sub-group, which is destitute of tail, 
and almost of interfemoral membrane ; charac- 
ters, however, to which other species approxi- 
mate. They inhabit the darkest caverns, in vast multitudes, the sexes and young in separate assemblages. 
Penetrating to more deeply obscure recesses than any of the others, it is probable that their facial appendages are 
endowed with exquisite sensibility, for the still further extension of that delicacy of the sense of touch, by which 
others of this family are enabled to guide themselves when deprived of vision : the dryness of those membranes 
intimates that they are not olfactory. Certain inguinal glands, more or less distinctly developed in these 
animals, have been erroneously described as mammaiy teats. 
* There is reason to suspect that tlic genus jDes?no(/«s is mucli more | t A British locality, where both occur rather numerously, is the 
I W( 
Fig. 15. — Khinolophus nobilis. 
R. insignis 
extensively representetl. — En. 
vcll-known cave near Torquay, in Devonshire, called Kent's Hole, 
