Mr. E. BlytVs Notices of various Mammalia. 463 



females for several weeks. They are exclusively frugivorous, 

 and take no notice of the buzz of an insect held to them ; which 

 I remark in reference to a statement of Mr. Gray, that the 

 nearly allied little Kiodote is partly insectivorous : this I doubt 

 very much. The Cynopterus is a very ravenous eater, and will 

 devour more than its own weight at a meal, voiding its food but 

 little changed as excrement, while still slowly munching away. 

 Of guava it swallows the juice only (though a soft mellow fruit), 

 opening and closing its jaws very leisurely in the act of mastica- 

 tion, and rejecting the residue. The flight of this bat is parti- 

 cularly light and buoyant, far different from the measured 

 rowing, the direct and heavy flight of the large Pteropus ; but 

 the general manners and the voice of the two are very similar*. 



The other Indian Vesper tilionidce fall into three principal 

 groups; viz. Rhinolophince, comprising the genera MegadermUf 

 Rhinolophus and Hipposideros, and Nycteris (which at least is a 

 Malayan genus), — Dj/sopodirice, including Dysopes (with its va* 

 rious subdivisions, as Cheiromeles, &c.), TaphozouSj and Rhino- 

 poma, — and Vesper tilionin(p, or the ordinary Bats. 



The Megaderma Lyra appears to be a common species through- 

 out India, and I have described its habit of preying on smaller 

 bats, first sucking their blood, in Journ. As. Soc. xi. 255. In re- 

 ference to that paper, Mr. Frith informs me that a number of 

 these bats were in the habit of resorting to the verandah of his 

 residence in Mymunseng, and that every morning the ground 

 under them was strewed with the hind-quarters of frogs, and 

 the wings of large grasshoppers and crickets : on one occasion 

 the remains of a small fish were observed ; but frogs appeared 

 to constitute their chief diet — never toads ; and of a quiet even- 

 ing these animals could be distinctly heard crunching the heads 

 and smaller bones of their victims. Other species of bats were 

 noticed to keep aloof from this retreat, but Mr. Frith had no 

 opportunity of confirming my observation, that the Megaderma 

 preys upon smaller animals of its tribe. The disproportion of 

 the sexes in the assemblages of this species in their diurnal 

 retreats is noticed in Journ. As. Soc. xi. 600 ; and indeed I think 

 that the same pretty nearly holds throughout the family. In 

 Mr. Elliotts catalogue the name carnatica is proposed, with a 

 mark of doubt, for the Megaderma of S. India, which however 

 is perfectly identical with that of Calcutta. 



* After a while, the three caged females mentioned above attracted a 

 male, who used to be continually hovering about their cage of an evening, 

 and at length took up his diurnal residence hitching to a rafter above a dark 

 staircase close by, where one of the females who escaped inunediately joined 

 him, and they continued to retreat there regularly for some days, when 

 both were caught. 



