SHREWS AND BATS 295 



regularity with which they come in night after 

 night to feed at particular trees enables those 

 natives who regard them as desirable articles of 

 diet to reap a rich harvest during their seasonal 

 visits. Two methods of capturing them are in 

 common use in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. 

 The first is carried out by means of very tenacious 

 and widely - meshed nets, which are suspended 

 vertically between two fruiting trees, over an 

 open space or roadway through which the bats 

 are likely to sweep in descending to land among 

 the branches. The nets are so slight in texture, 

 and are often hung so far aloft, as to present a 

 certain likeness to the monstrous spiders' webs 

 which often occupy similar positions. A very 

 distinguished botanist once took me out to see 

 one as a very remarkable specimen of a web, and 

 was deeply grieved at my jeers over his discovery. 

 The second method of trapping is of a more com- 

 plicated character, and can only be conducted by 

 the co-operation of two men. One of them is 

 provided with a call and a dark-lantern, and the 

 other with a so-called Mnta, an apparatus con- 

 sisting of a bundle of twigs fastened to the end of 

 a pole, and somewhat resembling a long-handled 

 birch-broom. When they have arrived at a place 

 where the bats are feeding, the man with the call 

 puts it into his mouth and shows the light of his 

 lantern. The light attracts the attention of the 



