290 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



go to the rescue and transfer the poor little tired 

 mariner to the safe shelter of a thick shrub. 



To the ordinary observer the great fruit-bats 

 are the most interesting members of the family 

 that are to be met with in India. Two species, 

 Pteropus medius and Cynopterus marginatus, are 

 very common in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. 

 The first of them, the common large fly ing- fox, 

 is a familiar object throughout the greater part of 

 India. In "The Fauna of British India" the 

 species is said to be unknown in the Punjab, but 

 in the year 1880, the trees in the enclosure of the 

 Baba Tal, in the town of Amritsar, were certainly 

 tenanted by a large colony of them, and, as the 

 Queen's Gardens in Delhi always contain large 

 numbers, it is hardly likely that they are entirely 

 absent from the country lying between the two 

 cities. A colony of flying-foxes is always a note- 

 worthy sight, and occasions ceaseless wonder that 

 such singularly ill-tempered animals should ever 

 have come to adopt a social mode of life. Should 

 a colony be visited at an hour early enough to 

 allow of the study of the behaviour of the animals 

 as they come in from their nocturnal wanderings, 

 it will be found that each successive arrival is 

 greeted by a chorus of viciously ill-natured cries, 

 and that the task of effecting a landing among 

 the boughs is one of considerable peril, owing to 

 the malignant attacks that the animals, who have 



