THE BATS. 



73 



in a birdcage, and makes a pleasant pet. I once caught one 

 with a net, as it was negotiating a guava to which it had no 

 right, and in a short time it grew quite tame. When I pre- 

 sented a peeled plantain at the door of its cage it would 

 travel along the wires, hanging by its feet and thumb-nails, 

 and take the fruit out of my hand. Then it wrapped its 

 wings round the plantain, and, beginning at one end, went 

 steadily through it. The plantain was as big as itself, but 

 capacity for food is one of the strong points of the whole 

 bat family, and there was seldom anything left in the 

 morning. During the day it enfolded itself in its wings 

 and slept, hanging by one foot from the top of its cage. 



Bats have one lovely virtue, and that is family affection. 

 I shall never forget a captive family of demon bats which I 

 once saw, the grim old papa, the mother perhaps a trifle 

 more hideous, and the half-grown youngster, not quite able 

 yet to provide for himself. There was something very 

 touching in the tender attachment to one another of three 

 such ill-omened objects. Fruit-bats, too, when they go 

 foraging, never leave the baby at home. It clings to the 

 mother's breast, and she carries it wherever she goes. A 

 humane friend of mine has communicated to me, for inser- 

 tion heie, a very affecting story of a bat which he found, 



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