46 Animal Life 
supported, as well as the margin, are also of the same brilliant hue, as is likewise 
the whole of the membrane connecting the hind-legs. With the exception of a few 
spots and flecks of orange, the rest of the wing-membranes are deep black; on the 
lower surface of the body the fur is somewhat lighter in colour than that of the 
back. When disturbed and made to take flight in the daytime, this bat looks like 
a large brilliantly-coloured butterfly or moth. 
Obviously there must be some special reason why this particular species should 
differ so remarkably in colour from all its relatives, and this reason is not far to 
seek. Those who have seen it in its native haunts tell us that during the daytime 
this bat conceals itself in a folded leaf of the planta. Now the ripe fruit of the 
plantain—and in Ceylon and Southern India the fruits are ripe throughout the year— 
is practically identical in colour with the bat; and possibly decaying leaves may take 
on the same yellow and black-flecked coloration, although I cannot now remember 
whether this is really the case. Anyway, the resemblance of the colouring of the bat 
to that of a ripe plantain is a sufficient explanation why this species differs so 
remarkably in hue from all its kindred. It is, moreover, a striking demonstration of 
the fact that marked peculiarities in the coloration of a particular species or genus 
are very frequently of a protective nature. How this bat acquired its distinctive livery 
is a question I will leave my readers to discuss, for I am told that my own views on 
such matters are somewhat old-fashioned and out of date. 
But the plantain-bat is by no means the only species displaying this abnormal type 
of coloration, two members of the allied genus Myotis being also orange and black. The 
first of these is Hodgson’s Bat (M. formosus), ranging from India to China, and the second 
Welwitsch’s Bat (M. welwitschi) of Angola and probably other districts on the west coast 
of Africa. In the latter the general tint of the fur is reddish above and straw-coloured 
below. The wing-membranes are orange and black, but the arrangement of the two colours 
differs somewhat from that obtaining in the plantain-bat. The black portions, for instance, 
are triangular in form, and occupy the spaces between the second and third and third 
and fourth fingers, as well as an area included between the fourth finger and a line drawn 
between the wrist and the ankle. The rest of the wings 1s orange with black spots and 
dots, as is also the membrane between the legs with the exception of its margin, which 
is black. Hodgson’s bat, in which the fur is yellower, has the wings coloured in almost 
exactly the same way, but the black spots are wanting from the orange areas, and the 
dark spaces are flecked and spotted with orange. Moreover, orange extends along the 
margins of the fingers (of which the bones are of the same hue), and the ears and the 
whole of the membrane connecting the hind-limbs are lkewise orange. 
With the habits of Hodgson’s bat we are fortunately well acquainted, owimg to 
observations made many years ago by an English naturalist im Formosa. It appears 
that these bats are in the habit of hanging suspended during the daytime from the 
branches of the evergreen longan-tree, a species of Nephelium. As the leaves of that 
tree decay they turn orange and black, such decaying leaves being found at all seasons. 
The fruit is also of a reddish-yellow colour when ripe; and we are told that it is 
almost impossible to detect the bats from the dead leaves or ripe fruit among which 
they hang. Probably the coloration of Welwitsch’s bat harmonises in precisely the 
same manner with the fruit or decaying foliage of one of the trees of its native country. 
The remarkable thing in all this is, of course, that three distinct species of bats, 
none of them very closely allied, and one generically distinct from the other two, should 
have acquired an almost identical type of protective coloration, each apparently quite 
independently of the others. If all the members of a single genus had been thus 
modified, the marvel would have been very much less, since they might all be descended 
from a common ancestor possessing the distinctive colouring. 
