This is another species of the Mormops group, but very much less remarkable in its characters. It has pointed ears, with an elongated tragus. The hinder nasal appendage, which is so large in Blainville’s Bat, here forms merely a sort of transverse pad across the middle of the muzzle, and the nostrils are pierced in the middle of the upper part of a naked piece, which rises directly from the upper lip. The lower lip is warty, but the warty portion gradually passes into the other part of the lip, and below it there is a thin fold of skin. The skull is considerably longer than high; and while the teeth are present in the same number as in Mormops, the second premolar in the lower jaw is small, and removed inwards from the line of the series of teeth.
HEAD OF OWL-FACED BAT.
(From Gosse’s “Jamaica.”)
The Owl-faced Bat is a small species, the head and body measuring only two inches. The tail is an inch long, and about a fifth of it projects from the upper surface of the interfemoral membrane, which is expanded by a pair of very long spurs. The expanse of wing is nearly twelve inches, which is very great for so small a Bat. The body is covered with a short, soft fur, of a brownish-grey colour above, and pale-grey beneath; the membranes are black.
The Owl-faced Bat was originally obtained from Cuba, but it has since been captured in St. Domingo and Jamaica, and may probably occur elsewhere in the West Indies, or on the continental part of Central America. Mr. Gosse, when in Jamaica, captured a specimen which flew in at an open window, but did not allow itself to be taken until after a very tedious pursuit, in which it manifested great agility on the wing. He says that “in captivity it uttered once or twice, very slightly, the peculiar short sound resembling the clicking of some delicate piece of machinery, which every one who is familiar with living Bats will remember as common to most of these animals. It was very active, leaping up to flight from the table, and expanding the wings in a moment, though confined within a candle-shade. It bit fiercely at the hand that held it, but could not draw blood from the fingers. It usually carried the apical half of the interfemoral bent upward at the point where it ceases to embrace the tail, so that the tail seems to extend beyond the membrane. It is thus held by the calcanea, the tips of which, curving downward, carry down again the tip of the membrane, puckered into minute plicæ.”
Another species of this genus, Chilonycteris Parnellii, inhabits Cuba and Jamaica, and two others, C. personata and C. rubiginosa, occur in Brazil, and extend thence to Central America.
Another allied form is Davy’s Bat (Pteronotus Davyii), which is remarkable for having the wings attached along the course of the spine, as in the Pteropid genera Cephalotes and Notopteris (see [pp. 277], [278]).
THE JAVELIN BAT.[236]
In the genus Phyllostoma the nasal appendages are well developed; there is a distinct horseshoe-shaped piece in front, and above the nostrils rises a large lance-shaped leaf. The middle of the lower lip shows a triangular naked patch with warty margins. The ears are of moderate length and quite separate; the tail is much shorter than the interfemoral membrane; and the first phalanx of the middle finger is less than half the length of the metacarpal bone. There are, as usual in this family, four incisors in each jaw; the canines are large and powerful, and the lower jaw has only two premolars on each side. The true molars are well developed, and show strong W-shaped cusps.