FRUIT-BATS. 2 55 



scrambling about hand-over-hand with some speed, biting each other severely, 

 striking out with the long claw of the thumb, shrieking and cackling without 

 intermission. Each new animal is compelled to fly several times round the tree, 

 being threatened from all points, and when he eventually hooks on he has to go 

 through a series of combats, and be probably ejected two or three times before he 

 makes good his tenure." 



Full accounts of this bat will also be found in Sir J. Emerson Tennent's 

 Natural Hit<>ry of Ceylon, although it is probable that this writer was mistaken 

 in saying that its diet included insects. He observes that a favourite resort of 

 these bats was some tall india-rubber trees near Kandy, in Ceylon, where they used 

 to assemble in such prodigious numbers that large boughs would not unfrequently 

 give way beneath the accumulated weight of the flock. It is also stated that the 

 branches on which they are accustomed to roost become almost denuded of leaves, 

 most of these being stripped off' by the bats as they contend with one another for 

 the favourite roosting-places. When suspended in the usual position, these bats, 

 move easily from place to place, and from branch to branch, by using each foot in 

 turn, and by climbing, when occasion requires, by the aid of the claws. When 

 feeding, Colonel Tickell states that the fox-bats hang by one foot only, and take 

 the fruit they are about to eat in the other, seizing it by driving in their claws like 

 a fork, and not by a grasping action. 



Fox-bats invariably fly singly in long files, and never in close flocks ; their 

 flight being a slow, flapping, measured movement. In Calcutta the long strings of 

 these bats may be seen every evening stretching across the sky from west to east, 

 although the number of individuals varies considerably at different seasons of the 

 year. Writing there on 23rd August 1869, Dr. John Anderson observes that " this 

 species has been flying for the last few days from the north to the south of the 

 city, in immense numbers, immediately after sunset. The sky from east to west 

 has been covered with them as far as the eye could reach, and all were flying with 

 an evident purpose, and making for some common feeding-ground. Over a trans- 

 verse area of two hundred and fifty yards as many as seventy bats passed overhead 

 in one minute, and as they were spread over an area of great breadth, and could 

 be detected in the sky on both sides as far as the eye could reach, their numbers 

 were very great, but yet they continued to pass overhead for about half an hour. 

 This is not the first time I have observed this habit in this species ; indeed, it was 

 much more markedly seen in August 1864, while I was residing in the Botanical 

 Gardens, Calcutta. The sky, immediately after sunset, was covered with these bats, 

 travelling in a steady manner from west to east, and spread over a vast expanse, all 

 evidently making for one common goal, and travelling, as it were, like birds of pass- 

 age with a steady purpose. I observed them, not only on one, but both sides of the 

 river. But in the Botanical Gardens I noticed that, whilst the great mass of bats 

 passed on, a few were attracted by trees then in fruit, and seemed to go no further. 

 This continued for a number of successive nights, but I did not observe the bats re- 

 turning." What occasioned these enormous assemblages has not yet been explained. 



This species of fruit-bat has an expanse of wing of about 4 feet from tip to 

 tip ; and it is found throughout the whole of India, Ceylon, and Burma. In the 

 Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, it is, however, replaced by a . 



