VEGETABLE VAGARIES. 277 



varieties of Mangroves are the more numerous. Ceriops, yEgiceras, Excsecaria, 

 Bruguiera and other generic types are mingled with Rhizophora and Avicennia. The 

 majoi'ity of these possess large handsome glossy foliage as ornamental in character as 

 that of cultivated Laurels, Euonymi, or Rhododendrons. Rhizophora, in fact, when 

 forming as it does on the outskirts compact symmetrical growths, might be readily 

 mistaken for a rhododendron bush, and the same might be said of Bruguiera Rheedii. 

 Many of the Mangrove species, moreover, produce an abundance of flowers which, if 

 not conspicuous for size and beauty, are highly scented and load the surrounding 

 atmosphere with sweet perfume. sEgiceras majus is one of these, the white flowers 

 growing in profuse bunches at the extremities of the branches and emitting a scent 

 almost as powerful as and somewhat resembling that of the Garden Syringa. 

 Rhizophora mucronata, again, produces star-shaped white woolly flowers that are, 

 though more diminutive, to a considerable extent suggestive of those of the Fringed 

 Violet, Thysanotis, hereafter described. 



The brilliant colours and quaint habits of the singular crabs belonging to the 

 genus Gelasimus that occur abundantly among the Mangroves have been referred to 

 in a previous Chapter. Birds of many varieties abound in the Mangrove thickets. 

 They include Honey-eaters attracted by the flowers, flycatchers, king-fishers, waders, and 

 on the sea margin, the fish-eating hawks. Not unfrequently the Fruit-eating Bats, or 

 Flying Foxes of the colonists, belonging to the genus Pteropus, take up their abode 

 in the denser, rarely invaded, depths of the Mangrove forests. In these secure retreats, 

 or rookeries as they are somewhat inappropriately termed "battery" would seem to 

 be the correct word the animals assemble in hundreds or even thousands and pass 

 the whole day hanging head downwards asleep, or in a semi-torpid state, from the 

 Mangrove branches. As soon, however, as the shades of evening fall, they awake to 

 activity and sally forth in long streams to every point of the compass in quest of food. 

 The somewhat bean-like fruit of the White Mangrove, Avicennia officinalis, would 

 appear to yield these bats an abundant repast at some seasons of the year, while the 

 flowers of the many species of Eucalyptus, of which some kinds are almost always in 

 bloom, represent a yet more permanent diet. Cultivated fruits such as peaches, 

 grapes, mangoes or bananas, are, as dwellers in bat countries well know, a terrible 

 temptation to these night marauders, who will travel incredible distances from their 

 mangrove or scrub fastnesses to take their toll, often a most heavy one, from the 

 crop in season. An individual out of a dense crowd that was surprised and captured 

 in the Mangrove thickets in Roebuck Bay, Western Australia, has furnished the 



