FLYING FOXES. 



CHAPTEE XXXIX. 



TROPICAL BATS. 



Wonderful Organisation of the Bats — The Fox-Bat — The Vampire — Its Blood- 

 sucking Propensities — The Horse-Shoe Bats — The Flying Squirrel — The Gale- 

 opithecus — The Anomalurus. 



WHEN the sun has disappeared below the horizon, and night 

 falls on the landscape, which a little while ago was 

 bathed in light, then from hollow trees, and creviced rocks, and 

 ruined buildings, a strange and dismal race comes forth. 



Silently hovering through the glades of the wood, or skim- 

 ming along the surface of the streams, it catches the crepuscular 

 or nocturnal moths, and serves like the swallow by day to check 

 the exuberant multiplication of the insect tribes. But while 

 man loves the swallow, and suffers him to build his nest under 

 the eaves of his dwelling, he abhors the bat, which like an evil 

 spirit avoids the light of day, and seems to feel happy only in 

 darkness. The painter, expressing this general feeling, gives 



