180 WILD BEASTS OF THE WOULD 



This species cannot, however, compare in aptitude for cage-life with" 

 the Collared Fruit-Bat of Africa {Cynonycteris collaris), a rather smaller 

 species with a rudimentary tail, which bred freely, generation after 

 generation, in the London Zoological Gardens, though the specimens 

 were confined in cages so narrow that flight was impossible. This 

 Bat is a cave-haunter, and does not roost in trees by day. 



' There are a considerable number of species of these Old World 

 fruit-eating Bats, much alike in general habits, but varying considerably 

 in size, from the Kalong {Pteropus edulis) of Malacca and the East 

 Indies, which measures five feet across the wings, down to the little 

 LOng-tongued Fruit-Bat {Carponycteris minima), which is smaller 

 than our Noctule or Great Bat, for the Megachiroptera, although they 

 average considerably larger than the other section, are not always so. 

 The Long-tongued Fruit-Bats have the tongue not only long and 

 extensible, but furnished with a kind of brush at the tip, very suitable 

 for licking out the soft pulp of fruit. Big or small, the Fruit-Bats, 

 are the bane of fruit-growers in the East, and the American Government 

 is so afraid of these pests getting a footing in the Western world, that 

 their importation into the United States is not allowed, and any one 

 who comes ashore with a live Flying-Fox has the mortification of 

 seeing his pet incontinently executed. 



