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BATS. 
The Fruit-Bats. 
Family TteropodiDsE. 
The largest of all bats are the so-called flying foxes, or fruit-bats, of the 
warmer regions of the Old World, which differ from the other members of the order 
in their purely frugivorous habits, and in certain details of structure partly caused 
by adaptation to their special mode of life. It is highly probable, as Professor T. 
Bell observes, that some of these huge fruit-bats “ with their predatory habits, their 
multitudinous numbers, their obscure and mysterious retreats, and the strange 
combination of beast and bird which they were believed to possess, gave to Virgil 
the idea, which he has so poetically worked out, of the harpies which fell upon the 
hastily-spread tables of his hero and his companions, and polluted, whilst they 
devoured, the feast from which they had driven the affrighted guests. ’ 
Since the fruit-bats differ so essentially from all the other members of the 
order, both in habits and structure, they are not only referred by naturalists to a 
separate family,—the Pteropodidoe ,—but are likewise distinguished as a special 
suborder, appropriately termed the Megachiroptera, or large bats. 
As a group, the fruit-bats are characterised by their generally large size, and 
by the peculiar nature of their teeth, as well as by certain features connected with 
the wings, ears, and tail. As regards the teeth, they are characterised by the 
molars having nearly, or quite smooth crowns, elongated from back to front, and 
divided by a deep longitudinal groove; such a t}^pe of tooth being obviously as 
admirably adapted for mashing up pulpy fruits, as the cusped teeth of ordinary 
bats would be unsuited. The wings of fruit-bats may be at once distinguished 
from those of all other kinds by having three (instead of one or rarely two) joints in 
