66 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— BATS 
small birds. It has very large ears, an elaborate 
nose-leaf, a head-and-body length of 3 inches 
and a wing expanse of 16 inches. 
THE FAMILY OF HORSESHOE BATS. 
Rhinolophidae. 
This Family contains thirty species of small 
bats, all of which are restricted to the Old World. 
THE FAMILY OF FRUIT-EATING BATS. 
Pteropodidae. 
The members of this Family are bats of very 
large size, with fox-like heads, dense and abun- 
dant pelage, large eyes, and free tails when tails 
are present. They are quite diurnal in their 
habits, and feed almost exclusively upon fruit. 
They inhabit India, Ceylon, the Malay Archi- 
pelago and eastern Australia, and are almost 
the only bats that find their way into captivity 
for exhibition purposes. They are very socia- 
ble in their habits, and live in colonies of from 
five to fifty individuals. 
The Flying “Fox.” 1 The largest of the bats 
which we occasionally see darting through the 
gloaming with irregular, jerky flight, are about 
as large as purple martens, — tiny creatures, 
weak, and quite incapable of offence. In the 
East Indies, however, and also Australia, there 
are bats of enormous size. These are known 
as Fruit Bats, or Flying “Foxes.” Some of 
those shot by the author in Ceylon had wings 
which spread forty inches. 
On one occasion I found the top of a small 
tree, about fifty feet high, filled with these ani- 
mals. They hung head downward from the 
upper branches, in places so thickly as to crowd 
each other, — quarrelling, squealing shrilly, and 
climbing about. To see nearly a hundred bats 
of such huge size hanging in one tree-top, quite 
at home in the broad glare of a tropical after- 
noon sun, was a strange and impressive sight. I 
had been asked to procure and preserve for 
American museums six dozen specimens of that 
species, and when after long observation I finally 
fired into the bunch, the black and brown cloud 
of giant bats that rose in the air, and slowdy 
1 Pter'o-pus ed'wards-i. 
flapped away, was one of the most grewsome 
sights I ever saw in animal life. Of all creatures 
that fly, none are so thoroughly uncanny when 
outlined against the sky as the big, black-winged, 
half-naked Flying “Fox.” They suggest de- 
mons and calamities. 
The Flying “ Fox ” derives its name from the 
resemblance of its head to that of a very small 
fox. It feeds wholly upon fruit, and when it 
inhabits well-settled districts it is cordially dis- 
liked by every person who owns a fruit-tree. In 
some portions of Australia, these creatures have 
done great damage to fruit, and energetic meas- 
ures, such as the explosion of dynamite among 
them, have been resorted to for their destruc- 
tion. 
Some of the fruit-growers of California are so 
apprehensive of this creature, and so fearful 
that it might be “introduced,” they have se- 
cured the passage of a law, by which the im- 
portation of the Flying “Fox” is prohibited 
so rigidly that not one specimen can be imported, 
even for exhibition in a zoological garden. As 
a matter of fact, this fear of the presence of the 
Flying “ Fox ” in the United States is quite as 
groundless as the old fear of being quill-shot by 
Canada porcupines. It certainly would be very 
difficult to introduce that species, and keep it 
from being exterminated, except possibly in 
some of our insular possessions. 
In the Flying 
“ Fox ” Family is 
found another re- 
markable variation 
in bat physiognomy, 
the Hammer-Head- 
ed Bat, 2 a species 
discovered in the 
land of the gorilla, 
by Du Chaillu. The 
head of the animal 
is of large propor- 
tions as compared 
with the body, and 
the muzzle is enormously enlarged. In general 
outline, the head in profile is much like the head 
of a moose. This is quite a large bat, its wing 
expanse being 28 inches. 
2 Ep-o-moph'o-rus. 
HAMMER-HEADED BAT. 
(After Joseph Wolf.) 
