A GROUP OF WATER BATS. 
CHEIROPTERA; 
OR, WING-HANDED ANIMALS. 
HE Cheiroptera, literally Wing-handed Animals, are placed as ranking next after 
the Primates, though later authorities regard them as representing features of 
a more inferior grade. Over four hundred species of bats have been described, 
being distributed over the entire globe. In the family Phyllostomidse thirty-one 
genera and sixty species are recorded. These are the leaf -nosed Bats, and are 
confined to the range east of the Andes, in Chili. The blood-sucking Yampires 
belong to this group. 
In the group called the Short-headed Bats (. Noctilionidce ), there are fourteen genera and 
fifty species. They range from Mexico and California to Chili. 
The family Yespertilionidce embraces eighteen genera and two hundred species, inhabit- 
ing various parts of the world ; in America as far north as Hudson’ s Bay and the Columbia 
River. 
From the earliest times in which the science of zoology attracted the attention of observant 
men, the discovery of a true systematic arrangement has been one of the great objects of those 
who studied animal life, and the forms on which it is outwardly manifested. Among the more 
conspicuous of those enigmatical beings are the strange and wierd-like animals which are 
popularly known by the terse title of Bats, and, scientifically, by the more recondite name of 
Cheiroptera. 
A most remarkable example of the occurrence of bats in large numbers is recorded in the 
seventh volume of the Smithsonian Institution, in the form of a letter from M. Figaniere, 
Portuguese Minister, resident in or near Washington. He had purchased a piece of property 
at Seneca Point, in Maryland. The house had remained unoccupied some time, and had 
become the abode of bats. A detailed account is given of how much trouble the creatures 
gave the owner before they would yield up their domiciles. Upon actual count of those killed 
