58 MAMMALS

Pteropus. The fox-bats, with short tails and short
fur on the back of the neck, are assigned to another
genus, Xantharpyza. In the accompanying illustra-
tion we have a representative of YY. collaris, the
collared fox-bat, which is interesting as showing the
way in which such animals carry their young. There
are collared bats living in the great pyramid of
Cheops, others in the old buildings of Palestine, and
one species has its home in the rocksalt caves of
Kishm Island in the Persian Gulf.

The general colouration of the fruit-bats is black
and tan. Some of them are anything but prepos-
sessing in appearance. For instance, there is a
‘hammer-headed’ bat in the Gaboon country which
has a head like an ugly old horse, and there is a
genus of ‘tube-nosed bats’ in the neighbourhood of
Torres Straits the species of which look like Japanese
monsters made up for show purposes. On the other
hand, some are really handsome. In the Solomon
Totunds there is one, a long-tongued fruit-bat, Veso-
nycterts Woodford:, which has a bright orange body
and dark brown wings. Another interesting bat in the
Solomon Islands is the cusped-toothed one, in which
the teeth have cusps that almost obliterate the longi-
tudinal grooves, thus giving the transition form
between the two sub-orders which zoologists have
set up.

The insectivorous bats are much more numerous
than the others, there being no less than five families
of them. Among those most worthy of notice are
the horse-shoes with nose-leaves and no inner ear or
tragus, as it is called, but a membrane in front, which