AMONG the numbers of the bat species, which were neither named nor known, we indicated some by names derived from foreign languages, and others by denominations drawn from their most striking characters. We have called one the Horse-shoe Bat, from the exact resemblance the fore-part of its face bears to a horse-shoe, and the animal in question we have called the Javelin Bat, ([fig. 177.]) from a sort of membrane on its nose which perfectly resembles the head of an ancient javelin, or spear. Though this character alone is sufficient to distinguish it from all other bats, yet we may add, that it has scarcely any tail, that its hair and size are nearly like the common bat, but that instead of having six incisive teeth in the lower jaw, it has only four. This species of bat is very common in America, but is never found in Europe.
There is another bat in Senegal, which has also a membrane upon its nose, not in the form of a horse-shoe, or javelin, as in the two bats we have just mentioned, but in the shape of an oval leaf. These three bats, being of different climates, are not simple varieties but distinct and separate species. M. Daubenton has given the description of the Senegal bat, under the name of the leaf bat, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 1759, p. 374.
Bats which have great affinities to birds, by the power of flying, and the strength of their pectoral muscles, seem to resemble them still more in these membranes, or crests, which they have on their faces. These redundant parts, which, at first sight, seem only to be superfluous deformities, are real characters which fill up the visible shades between these flying quadrupeds and birds; for most of the latter have crests, or membranes, about their beaks and heads, which seem in every respect as superfluous as those of the bats.
SUPPLEMENT
WE have received from M. Pallas the figures and descriptions of two bats hitherto unknown to naturalists; the first he calls the cephalote, or large-headed bat, ([fig. 178.]) from its head being so very large in proportion to its body. This bat M. Pallas says is found in the Malacca islands; and from his finding but one fœtus in a female, which was sent to him to Amsterdam, and which he dissected, he concludes they have but one young at a time: this species differs also from all others in the teeth, which in some measure resemble those of the mouse or hedge-hog; it has a short tail, situated between the thighs, a large nose and a broad muzzle; its breast is very similar to that of a bird; it is very near four inches long, and its wings extend above a foot.