(>92 CAPT. T. HUTTON ON HIMALA\AN BATS. [June 4, 



search of food. Notwithstanding their strong disagreeable odour 

 and forbidding appearance, the Kanjars, or gipsies, residing in the 

 neighbourhood used to catch and eat them when other food was 

 scarce or dear. Colonel Sykes mentions the occurrence of this 

 animal in the Mahratta country, where it is called Warbayool, and 

 is eaten by the lower class of native Portuguese ; he testifies also to 

 the savonriness of the flesh, having tasted it himself. 



Mr. Hodgson, writing from Nipal, says of this species that '* the 

 whole head and neck, with the body below, is rufous yellow ; face 

 as far as the eyes, the body above, and the membranes deep brown ; 

 snout to rump 10 in. ; expanse 46 in.; weight 22 oz." I have 

 myself seen similarly coloured specimens at Neemuch ; but why 

 Mr. Hodgson under these circumstances should have given it the 

 specific name of " leucocephalus," or white-headed, it is somewhat 

 difficult to imagine. It is said to visit Nipal only during the autumn 

 season, while the pears and guavas are ripening ; and the same is the 

 case in the Dehra Doon below Mussooree, where nightly visits are 

 paid to the fruit -gardens from the middle of August to the end of 

 September. It does not pass the day in the Doon ; upon this point 

 both natives and Europeans are agreed ; and consequently each night 

 during our fruit-season the animal in coming and going must per- 

 form a journey of from twenty-five to thirty miles at the least. A 

 female shot at Dehra on the 20th of August, and very obligingly 

 sent to me, presented the following characters and appearance : — 



Expanse of wings 3 ft. 9| in. ; length from nose to the outer 

 edge of the interfemoral membrane 1 ft. | in. ; length from the nose 

 to between the heads of the thigh-bones, 1 1| in. ; ear, from base to 

 tip, 1 \ in., pointed ; carpus 6f in. ; tibia 3|in. ; nostrils divergent, 

 separated by a notch or groove ; muzzle, ears, membranes, toes, 

 feet, and claws intensely black ; the back from the shoulders 

 clothed with soft silky fur, also intensely black, but with here and 

 there a scattered white hair ; head brown-black or blackish brown ; 

 a rufous collar round the neck, brighter on the dorsal or upper 

 aspect, browner below : body beneath rufous brown ; wings bearing 

 woolly rufous brown hairs on the underside, between the humerus 

 and carpus, and the same down the edge of the carpal bone to the 

 end of the body ; interfemoral membrane emarginated by the want 

 of a tail ; heel-bone f in., keeping the membrane expanded ; wing 

 attached to the two outer toes between the first and second joints ; 

 foot in the interfemoral to the ankle ; greatest breadth of wing at 

 the middle 9| in. ; longest finger 1 ft. | in. ; a short, broad, some- 

 what triangular and sharp-pointed claw curving upwards at the end 

 of the index finger. This claw appears to be for the purpose of 

 grasping fruit between itself and the thumb while the animal hangs 

 suspended by the feet. 



Dr. M'Clelland's description of his Pteropus assamensis clearly 

 shows it to be of this species ; there is in fact an almost endless variety 

 of colouring. The Assam specimen appears to have been passing 

 from the stage in which the above female is described into that of 

 Mr. Hodgson's Nipal specimen. 



