70 THE TRIBES 0V MY FRONTIER. 



"I had." "You hadn't." " I had." " Hands off." ''Whom 

 are you shoving?" Mutual recriminations follow, and from 

 words they proceed to blows. One is dislodged and flies 

 round to the other side of the tree, where it is greeted by a 

 chorus of growls, " No room here ! " but it plumps into the 

 middle of the objectors, and three lose their hold. Then 

 the brawl becomes general and ends in a regular fracas. 

 As the sun grows hot they cool down a little, but the fire is 

 only smouldering, and may break out again at any time. 

 These wranglings often lead indeed to the most scandalous 

 scenes, as every one knows who has lived near a bats' roost- 

 ing tree. Such trees are not so common about Bombay 

 as they are up country, because every Goanese cook plots 

 against the life of the flying-fox. 



The bat is one of the unclean birds mentioned in the 

 iith chapter of Leviticus, which the Jews were for- 

 bidden to eat, but Pedro rejoices in his Christian liberty, 

 and reckons it second only to roast pig. He hankers 

 after even the small fruit-bat, that lesser edition of the 

 flying-fox, which has such a penchant for the flowers of 

 the plantain-tree. This animal is not a quarter of the 

 size of the flying-fox, being only a foot and a half from tip 

 to tip of the wings, consequently it is easily accommodated 



