Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/561

Rh made several efforts to fly off with it; but, finding it must needs stay within the precincts of the cage, it soon hung by the hind-legs to one side of its prison, and, after sucking its victim till no more blood was left, commenced devouring it, and soon left nothing but the head and some portions of the limbs. The voidings observed very shortly afterward in its cage resembled clotted blood, which will explain the statement of Stedman and others concerning masses of congealed blood being always observed near a patient who has been attacked by a South African vampire. Such, then, is the mode of subsistence of the Megaderma."

Bats are most widely diffused over the surface of the globe, as their powers of flight might lead us to expect. Even Australia—so very peculiar in the character of the other beasts which inhabit it—possesses bats belonging to both of the bat families which are found in our own island.

But, although the whole group of bats, and also that family to which most English bats belong—the Vespertilionidœ—are thus widely distributed, the geographical limits of some families of bats are very sharply defined.

To appreciate these facts it is necessary to be acquainted with the geographical areas into which the surface of our globe may be divided, each considerable tract of the earth's surface having its more or less peculiar animal population, or fauna, as it has its indigenous plants, that is, its flora. The earth's surface is divisible into six zoölogical regions:

 1. The Palœarctic region, or Europe, Asia north of the Himalayas, and Africa north of the Sahara. 2. The Ethiopian region, or Africa south of the Sahara, and including Madagascar and also Arabia, which, geologically, is part of Africa. 3. The Oriental region, or Asia south of the Himalayas, with Southern China and the Philippine Islands and Indian Archipelago as far as the island of Bali. 4. The Australian region, or Australia, New Zealand, the less remote Pacific Islands, and those of the Indian Archipelago from New Guinea up to Lombok. 5. The Neotropical region, or South America, together with tropical North America and the West Indies. 6. The Nearctic region, or temperate North America and Greenland.

Now, the whole group of flying-foxes is strictly confined to the tropical regions of the Old World and Australia. In the same way the family of leaf-nosed bats, like those of England—the Rhinolophidœ,—is limited to the Old World, though reaching there much higher latitudes than do the flying-foxes.

The group to which the vampires belong—the Phyllostomidœ—is strictly confined to the Neotropical and Nearctic regions; and the