Dr. E. P. Wright on the Bats of the Seychelles. 437 
this is often the case, yet, as arule, they are nocturnal in their 
habits. About an hour before sunset they may be seen flying 
at great heights from their resting-place in the woods, towards 
the groves of the tree producing the “fruit de Cythére 
(Spondias cytherea) or the mango-trees (Mangifera pia 
which are generally found growing not far from the dwellings 
of the planters; but almost any fruit is equally welcome to 
them, and they are anything but welcome visitors to the 
neighbourhood of a fruit-garden. I recollect once taking up my 
position in a secluded spot near some fruit-trees that I knew 
were each evening visited by the bats: they began to arrive 
about 5 o’clock ; at first only one or two made their appear- 
ance, and they took up good places, with plenty of fruit near 
them, and alighted without noise; they, like all the others, 
flew very high, and made as if they were going to cross the 
island, and then, when just over the group of trees, they fell 
down as it were among them. By-and-by the arrivals were 
more numerous, and then the noise began; for a late comer 
would try to dislodge an earlier comer, and this not without much 
growling and grumbling and chattering. A little after sunset 
the noise was at its highest, and there were no more arrivals. 
At this time [ calculated that there were about a hundred and 
twenty bats in the group of trees. Coming from my place of 
concealment, I disturbed the multitude, and they fell off the 
branches at once, and commenced flyi ing in circles round the 
trees, gradually returning to their meal as I vanished in the 
distance. I was told that a Flyimg Fox with a perfectly black 
face was to be found on Isle Félicité; but though I spent 
several days on this island, and shot specimens on it of the 
ordinary P. Edwardsii, | never saw a specimen with a dark 
face. 
The second bat belonged to the insectivorous suborder, and 
was very common in the neighbourhood of the town of "Port 
Victoria, though very difficult to procure. It had a habit of 
flying round the clumps of bamboo towards twilight, just as the 
little pipistrelle orthe long-eared bat of this country around trees. 
3ut in the daytime it was to be found resting in the clefts of 
the mountain-side facing the sea and with a more or less 
northern aspect; and these hiding-places were generally co- 
vered over with the large fronds of Stevensonia grandifolia 
and Verschaffeltia splendida. I sent a specimen of this species 
to my friend Professor Peters, of Berlin, who informed me that 
he was writing a monograph of the Cheiroptera ; and he de- 
scribes it as a new species as follows *:— 
* Monatsbericht der Konigl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 
June 22, 1868, p. 567. 
