BATS. 



129 



plunge into the bamboo brake with an impetus that 

 sways the tall stalks like reeds. Others fly along the 

 coast toward the marshes of Wynkoop's Bay ; but the 

 plurality direct their course to the next fruit-plantations. 

 The natives, however, are ready for them. Every farmer 

 has from fifty to five hundred square feet of bast nets 

 of all sizes and forms, roof- and funnel-shaped pieces 

 for the orchards, and flat ones for the fields, — for the 

 Roussette attacks corn- and melon-patches as well as 

 fruit-trees. Judging from the ravenous appetite of the 

 Amsterdam specimens, I should be inclined to credit 

 the statement of a Batavian naturalist that a dozen Ka- 

 longs will strip a full-bearing plantain-tree in a single 

 night, — i.e., devour from sixty to eighty bananas in about 

 seven hours. They cling to the fruit-clusters like par- 

 rots, skin a banana without breaking it off, and eat it 

 down to the stalk in less than five minutes, and at once 

 commence operations on the next one, often taking 

 snap-bites left and right to ascertain the comparative 

 maturity of the different clusters. Near Rydenberg, at 

 an elevation of nearly three thousand feet, some tree- 

 fruits need all the sunshine they can get, and the nets 

 are therefore taken off every morning and replaced to- 

 ward evening, which has the additional advantage of 

 protecting the crop against the heavy thunder-showers 

 which generally come down after sunset. If a fruit- 

 tree is left uncovered, the Kalongs find it by the same 

 unerring instinct that guides rats to an accessible 



