he foot consists of a short tarsus, and of
slender, laterally compressed toes, with much-curved claws.

Although the brain is of a low type, probably no animals possess so
delicate a sense of touch as Chiroptera. In ordinary bats tactile organs
exist, not only in the bristles on the sides of the muzzle, but in the
sensitive structures forming the wing-membranes and ears, while in many
species leaf-like expansions surrounding the nasal apertures or
extending backwards behind them are added. These nose-leaves are made up
partly of the extended and thickened integument of the nostrils, and
partly of the glandular eminences occupying the sides of the muzzle, in
which in other bats the sensitive bristles are implanted.

In no mammals are the ears so developed or so variable in form; in most
insectivorous species they are longer than the head, while in the
long-eared bat their length nearly equals that of the head and body. The
form is characteristic in each of the families; in most the "earlet," or
tragus, is large, in some cases extending nearly to the outer margin of
the conch; its office appears to be to intensify and prolong the waves
of sound by producing undulations in them. In the _Rhinolophidae_, the
only family of insectivorous bats wanting the tragus, the auditory
bullae reach their greatest size, and the nasal appendages their highest
development. In frugivorous bats the ear is simple and but slightly
variable. In all bats the ears are extremely mobile, each independently
at will.

The oesophagus is narrow, especially in blood-sucking vampires. The
stomach presents two types of structure, corresponding respectively to
the two divisions of the order, Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera; in
the former the pyloric extremity is, with one exception, elongated and
folded upon itself, in the latter simple; an exceptional type is met
with in the blood-suckers, where the cardiac extremity is elongated,
forming a long appendage. The intestine is comparatively short, varying
from one and a half to four times the length of the head and body;
longest in the frugivorous, shortest in the insectivorous species. In
_Rhinopoma_ and _Megaderma_ a small caecum has been found. The liver is
characterized by the great size of the left lateral lobe, which
occasionally equals half that of the whole organ; the right and left
lateral fissures are usually very deep; in Megachiroptera the spigelian
lobe is, with one exception, ill defined or