NOISY AND GREEDY BATS 221 



tired traveller. Sometimes six or seven hundred fly in 

 one troop, but more often five or six parties wheel about 

 the same neighbourhood, the number in each lot varying, 

 but the aggregate amounting to several thousands. This 

 is in spots where the colonists have not decimated them, 

 for the fruit-growers are their inveterate enemies, and 

 destroy them by every possible means. Poison is used 

 against them in several ways ; it is mixed with honey, 

 and sometimes with beer, and the pots containing the 

 mixture suspended in the trees where they congregate at 

 night. Not many seem to be destroyed by this means, for 

 they are so greedy for both beer and honey that com- 

 paratively few individuals taste the fatal mixture. Those 

 that first get at the pots drive the others away, and much 

 more of the poison is wasted than is swallowed. Shooting 

 is another way of destroying them, a great many being 

 killed at a shot as they hang thickly in the trees. Yet 

 the numbers still remaining, especially in lonely spots far 

 from the habitations of men, is enormous ; so much so, that 

 it is surprising that they find sufficient food, especially as 

 they are very greedy animals. They eat apples and pears, 

 as well as the softer fruits, and knock off much from the 

 branches in their struggles and squabbles to secure the 

 best places on the trees. 



These bats are almost incessantly fighting among them- 

 selves, and one of the most common causes of disagreement 

 seems to be the possession of certain trees for resting- 

 places. They congregate on four or five trees, to the 

 exclusion of others close at hand that seem to be well 

 suited for their purpose ; and I am sure that I have seen 

 more than a thousand on one tree, though, as they hang 

 very thickly, looking like a lot of old rags, it is impossible 

 to count them. The trees they frequent can always be 

 recognised by the state of the ground underneath, which 

 is covered with the refuse of fruit and their droppings, and 

 also with multitudes of leaves, which they tear off for no 

 discernible purpose. 



I could never discover if they make a nest, or where 

 the young are brought forth. They seem to have but 



