28 
MAMMALIAN GALLERY. 
between 4 and 5 feet in spread of wing. One of this group, 
Pteropus mediuSy is extremely common all over India, doing an 
enormous amount of damage to the fruit-gardens, to pillage which 
it is said they will make nightly expeditions of from ten to 
twenty miles, returning each morning to their accustomed sleeping- 
places. In striking contrast to these great animals is tbe tiny 
Carponycteris minimus , a true Fruit-Bat, but no bigger than a 
Mouse, which inhabits South Asia and Australia. Another notice- 
able species is the Long-nosed Bat (Harpyia cephalotes) j whose 
nostrils are elongated into peculiar tubes, the special use of which 
still remains to be discovered. There are about 70 species of 
Fruit-Bats, spread over all the tropical parts of the Old World. 
The Insectivorous Bats are much more numerous than the 
Frugivorous, numbering about 350 species, distributed over the 
wLole world, and extending even to remote islands in the Pacific, 
w'here they are the only indigenous Mammals. 'With but few ex- 
ceptions they are of dull coloration. Though in other respects 
much alike, they present striking modifications in their facial cha- 
racters, many of them developing on their muzzles very remark- 
able structures, known as nose-leaves, which seem to be tactile 
organs of extreme delicacy, and which are of wonderful variability 
both in shape and size (see fig. 11). 
Fig. 11. 
Mouutain Ilorseshoe-Bat of liulia {Rhinolophus luctus). 
Of the Insectivorous Bats exhibited, the following may be 
noticed: — The Great Nose-leaf Bats [Megaderma) of Africa, Asia, 
and Australia, which are the analogues among Bats of the Carni- 
vora^among Mammals generally, preying habitually on the smaller 
