FRUIT BATS, OR FLYING "FOXES" 177 



in their habits, and feed almost exclusively upon fruit. They 

 inhabit India, Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, and eastern 

 Australia, and are almost the only bats that find their way 

 into captivity for exhibition purposes. They are very sociable 

 in their habits, and live in colonies of from five to fifty indi- 

 viduals. 



The Flying "Fox."^ — The largest of the bats which we 

 ordinarily see darting through the gloaming with irregular, 

 jerky flight, are about as large as purple martins^ — tiny crea- 

 tures, weak, and quite incapable of offence. In the East 

 Indies, however, and also in Australia, there are bats of 

 enormous size. These are known as Fruit Bats, or Flying 

 "Foxes." Some of those shot by the author in Ceylon had 

 wings which spread forty inches. 



On one occasion I found the top of a small tree, about 

 fifty feet high, filled with these animals. They hung head 

 downward from the upper branches, in places so thickly as to 

 crowd each other — quarrelling, squealing shrilly, and climb- 

 ing about. To see nearly a hundred bats of such huge size 

 hanging in one tree-top, quite at home in the broad glare 

 of a tropical afternoon sun, was a strange and impressive 

 sight. I had been asked to procure and preserve for Ameri- 

 can museums six dozen specimens of that species, and when 

 after long observation I finally fired into the bunch, the black 

 and brown cloud of giant bats that rose in the air, and slowly 

 flapped away, was one of the most gruesome sights I ever 

 saw in animal life. Of all creatures that fly, none are so 

 thoroughly uncanny when outlined against the sky as the big, 



1 Pter'o-pus ed'wards-i. 



