Note 2 — CHAP. XXII.

As I have since had an opportunity of killing one of these bats, I cut off his head, which I here present to the reader in its natural size, and as a great curiosity, with the whole figure flying above it on a smaller scale. Having measured this creature, I found it to be between the tips of the wings thirty-two inches and a half; it is said that some are above three feet, though nothing like in size to the bats of Madagascar. The colour was a dark brown, nearly black, but lighter under the belly. Its aspect was truly hideous upon the whole, but particularly the head, which has an erect shining membrane above the nose, terminating in a shrivelled point: the ears are long, rounded, and transparent: the cutting teeth were four above and six below. I saw no tail, but a skin, in the middle of which was a tendon. It had four toes on each wing, with sharp nails divided like the web-foot of a duck2; and on the extremity of each pinion, where the toes are joined, was a nail or claw to assist it in crawling, like those of its hinder feet, by which it hangs suspended when asleep to trees, rocks, roofs, &c.