266 
NATURAL HISTORY . 
fruit diet, or consume animal food only as an exceptional dainty ; whilst the others almost as exclusively 
find their nourishment in the swarms of insects which everywhere people the air. Of the latter, how- 
ever, some few feed upon fruits, and others are said to diversify their insect fare by occasionally suck- 
ing the blood of other animals, and even of man himself. In the Frugivorous, or Fruit-eating Bats, 
the crowns of the molar teeth arc smooth, with a central furrow running in the direction of the length 
of the jaw; in the Insectivorous forms, on the contrary, the molars show sharp tubercles separated 
by transverse furrows, generally producing a sort of W-like pattern on each tooth. These two types of 
tooth-structure are associated in each case with other characters. The Bats are thus divided into two 
great groups, generally regarded as sub- orders. 
HEAD OF THE KALOXG. (Natural size .) 
CHAPTER II. 
SUB-OBDEPc I— MEGACHIROPTEEA, OP LARGE BATS. 
FAMILY I. — PTEROPIDiE, OR FRUIT-EATING BATS. 
Characteristics of Fruit-Eating Bats — Distribution — Diet — Flying Fox of Ceylon : its Habits, as described by Sir E. Tennent 
— The Flight of the Rtcropidcv — Known to the Ancients — The Fruit Bats in the Zoological Gardens — Indian Flying 
Fox — Diet — Dissipated Habits — Great Iv a long Linnaeus’s Description— In their Dormitories— Nicobar, Maned, 
Japanese, and Grey Fruit Bats— Grey-headed Fruit Bat— Gould’s Fruit Bat— Roussette— Egyptian Fruit 
Bat — Hottentot Fruit Bat — Maritime Fruit Bat— Margined Fruit Bat— White’s Fruit Bat — Hammer-headed 
Bat — Harpy Bat — Greater Harpy Bat — Cloaked Fruit Bat -Dwarf Long-tongued Fruit Bat — Black-cheeked 
Fruit Bat— Fijian Long-tongued Fruit Bat. 
The fruit-eating Bats ( Frugivora , Wagner), called Megachiroptera , or Large Bats, by Mr. Dobson, 
on account of the comparatively large size of most of the species, are characterised by having the face 
elongated and Dog-like (see above illustration) — whence the name of Flying Foxes is often applied 
to them by European residents in the countries where they occur — the ears simple and usually pointed, 
but with the sides uniting, so as to form a complete ring at the base, the nose without any leaf-like 
