298 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



is very evident (Plate XVIII.). It may be that 

 the social habit has arisen comparatively recently, and 

 that the resemblance dates from an earlier period, at 

 which special protection was advantageous to solitary 

 or merely paired animals. The evolution of the 

 social habit may well have done away with the need 

 of protective resemblance, and have allowed of the 

 tenancy of trees in which the elements making 

 for it are absent, but there can be no question 

 that the resemblance does exist in those instances 

 in which certain trees are made use of. 



The fruits of various kinds of figs are very great 

 favourites with these bats, and, when crops of 

 receptacles are maturing, the trees are constantly 

 haunted by swarms of them. They do not, how- 

 ever, seem to be nearly so quarrelsome as the great 

 flying-foxes, or, at all events, they carry on their 

 competition over the fruit so quietly that no sounds 

 of wrangling ever attend it. Their flight is much 

 stronger and more rapid than that of the flying- 

 foxes, and in going in and out of trees they never 

 cause the disturbance that the latter do. They are 

 curiously methodical in regard to the times at which 

 they come out in the evening; their exits always 

 take place at a particular period after sundown, and 

 thus, although their exact hour varies with the time 

 of year, they are as good as clocks at any given 

 time. It is very pretty to see a pair of them 

 hanging beneath the broad curving blade of a 



