108 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



stare and gasp. " Warbagul/' for instance^ is notMarathi for a flying- 

 fox or anything else. " Waghul/' in that language is a bat, and 

 *'Wadh" a banyan tree, and '' Wadh-Waghul" or "Banyan-bat" 

 is a flying-fox, because it afi'ects the banyan tree for board 

 and lodging. 



'^Tickell" (says Mr. Blanford in a note) ''notices their preference 

 for tamarind trees, and 1 think he is right. In Bengal, they 

 sometimes remain on bamboos." One would rather like to know 

 whether they "remain on bamboos" any longer than on tamarinds. 

 But as a matter of fact, if a particular grove or tree suits the bats 

 from position, they will roost there, perfectly indifferent as to species 

 and foliage, provided it is not thorny. They can't abear thorns, 

 because, in flapping and scrambling about the trees, their wings are 

 in frequent contact with the branches. 



Early British Administrators in the Eatnagiri District were 

 perplexed at finding certain Banyan trees assessed as Undi trees 

 [Calophyllum Inophyllum) whereof the stone of the fruit yields 

 a marketable oil. The reason was that flying-foxes haunted the 

 banyans, and dropped on the ground below the undigested Undi 

 stones, whereof they had converted the pulp into living bat. The 

 owner of the Banyan tree hereby got more Undi nuts from his Banyan 

 tree than the original owner of the Undis; but the Maratha tax- 

 gatherer was keen enough to find that out. Mr. Blanford, though 

 he notices that ''the trees on which the bats perch are frequently 

 injured," takes no notice of the fact that these brutes are a scourge 

 to all orchards of every sort. 



They infest even toddy palms (and other palms tapped for juice), 

 but do not drink the toddy in the pots. What they do is to chew 

 the flower stem on tap. 



Our author notices the yarn about these bats fishing, and thinks 

 himself that they skim the water to drink, which is probable enough 

 as they only do so at starting in the evening, when they have been 

 without food or water for many hours, and do not do it on salt water. 



The fishing hypothesis is not so absurd as it looks. One of the 

 South American carnivorous bats has been fairly convicted of catch- 

 ing fish by a very similar action, and this volume records one case 

 of ichthyophagy in the Indian Varopirej Megaderma lyra. Some 



