The taste is quite bitter. Formerly the 
roots, flowers and seeds were also used 
medicinally. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLatE.—A B, plant 
FRUIT BATS OF 
somewhat reduced. 1, flower; 2, 3, 4, 
stamens; 5, pollen; 6, 7, style and 
stigma; 8, 0, Ovary;, 10, fruitjor, 12, 
13, seed. 
‘THE; PHILIPPINES: 
HE Agricultural Department at 
Washington is taking precau- 
tions to prevent the importa- 
tion into the United States of 
any of the animal pests which are found 
in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and the 
other new colonies. Among these none 
is more feared than the great fruit bats 
which abound in the Philippines. A 
full grown specimen of the fruit bat 
measures five feet from tip to tip of its 
wings. The fruit bats live together 
in immense communities and feed 
almost altogether on tropical and sub- 
tropical fruits. They crowd together 
so thickly on the trees that sometimes 
large branches are broken down by 
their weight. In Australia they have 
increased so rapidly that great sums of 
money have been spent in their destruc- 
tion, one organized movement of the 
fruit growers of New South Wales re- 
cently resulting in the killing of 100,000 
bats at a cost of 30 cents each. An- 
other possible immigrant which is 
much dreaded is the mongoose, which 
abounds in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the 
other West Indian Islands. The mon- 
goose was first brought to the islands 
for the purpose of destroying the rats 
and mice, which it did so thoroughly 
that it was soon forced to adapt itself 
to another diet. It was found that the 
mongoose thrived on young poultry, 
birds, and even young pigs and lambs, 
while it also consumed great quantities 
of pineapples, bananas, corn and other 
vegetable products. 
MONKEYS AS 
GOLD FINDERS. 
APTAIN E. MOSS of the Trans- 
vaal tells the following story of 
the monkeys who work for him 
in the mines: “I have twenty- 
four monkeys,” said he, ‘employed 
about my mines. They do the work of 
seven able-bodied men. In many in- 
stances they lend valuable aid where a 
man is useless. They gather up the 
small pieces of quartz that would be 
passed unnoticed by the workingmen, 
and pile them up in little heaps that 
can easily be gathered up in a shovel 
and thrown into a mill. They work 
just as they please, sometimes going 
down into the mines when they have 
173 
cleared up all the debris on the outside. 
They live and work together without 
quarreling any more than men do. 
They are quite methodical in their 
habits, and go to work and finish up in 
the same manner as human beings 
would do under similar circumstances. 
It is very interesting to watch them at 
their labor, and see how carefully they 
look after every detail of the work they 
attempt. They clean up about the 
mines, follow the wheelbarrows and 
carts used in mining and pick up every- 
thing that falls off on the way.”— 
Tit Bits. 
