80 ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE. 



fox,' 5 Jerdon says : " During the day they roost on trees 

 generally in large colonies. Many hundreds often occupy 

 a single tree, to which they invariably resort if not driven 

 away. Towards sunset they begin -to get restless, move 

 about along the branches, and by ones and twos fly off for 

 their nightly rounds. If water is at hand a tank, a river, 

 or the sea they fly cautiously down and touch the water, 

 but I could not ascertain if they took a sip or merely dip- 

 ped part of their bodies in. They fly vast distances oc- 

 casionally to such trees as happen to be in fruit. They are 

 fond of most garden fruit (except oranges, &c.), also the 

 neem,jamoon, ber, and various figs. About the early dawn 

 they return from their hunting ground." While preparing 

 to roost in the usual tree, as often as not a tamarind, the 

 amount of wrangling that goes on is terrible. I have al- 

 ready described the behaviour of bats in a temple. In a 

 tree the squabbling is a thousand times worse. The bats 

 appear to have some slight reverence for the sanctity of the 

 temple, but in the tree they cast off all restraint. They bite 

 each other unmercifully, and use the long claw of the thumb 

 as though it were a fork and their neighbour a potato, 

 " shrieking and cackling" the whole time, but they do 

 eventually settle down, which is more than the bats in the 

 temple ever seem to. 



These " flying foxes" are common throughout India, 

 Burma, and Ceylon. In Calcutta they are to be seen in 

 long strings going to and fro from their roosting place. At 

 Rangoon, McMaster, with the help of a friend, counted as 

 many as six hundred passing in five minutes ; while Sir J. 

 F. Tennant tells us that in Ceylon, near Kandy, were some 

 india-rubber trees which the bats of the neighbourhood evi- 

 dently considered fashionable, for on these they " used to 

 assemble in such prodigious number that large boughs 

 would not infrequently give way beneath the accumulated 

 weight of the flock." Such is the grip of fashion, even on 

 bats. The " flying fox," like most bats, gives rise to but 

 one young at a birth. This hangs on to its mother's fur, so 



