780 The Central Philippines. 
low tints of the new foliage. Spring does not come all at once, nor 
to all plants at the same time, here; but I think that even here in 
the tropics every plant has its annual period of rest from growth, 
of leaf-shedding, and of spring, though there is no long period 
of time, as with us, between the last two processes, the new growth 
here usually crowding off the old leaves, though a few species, 
like some of the wild figs, are bare for some time before the appear- 
ance of the new leaves. These have in some instances led us to 
believe them dead from their bare appearance among the univer- 
sal green. 
The country along the coast at Concepcion was hilly and unpro- 
ductive, and uncultivated, and it was a mystery how the people 
existed, until we followed the roads leading back into several 
large level valleys which had been brought under cultivation, 
the lower parts, which could be flooded, to rice, and the higher 
to sugar cane. A few Spaniards and Mestizos had settled here, 
and were hauling their new sugar in buffalo carts to the coast 
for shipment. We passed several great sheds which served as 
sugar-mills, the machinery being in some cases upright wooden 
rollers turned by buffaloes, in others, small steam engines imported 
from England. On the wet rice grounds, now grown up to 
and grass, we shot a few rare water fowl, among them the great 
blue and purple heron of the Philippines. At a village on one 
side of one of these valleys we found a roost of fruit bats. Three 
or four acres at one side of the roadway, grown up to scattered 
‘clumps of bamboo, and in the bending tops of these the bats were 
clustered. The immense masses of small prickly branches, at the 
bases of these clumps, curve downward, and make thickets hard 
for man or beast to pass over or through to the trunks beyond, 
and they appear to be chosen by the bats for this reason. - 
We passed at least four distinct species of fruit bats inhabiting 
this grove, though each species was found by itself in particular 
trees. As we approached them, about noon, they hung, in pin 
quiet, head downwards, by both hind feet, the wings being fol a 
about the body so that they looked like clusters and strings 
great pendant birds’ nests. They were accustomed to the peop’? 
of the village passing beneath them, and paid no attention to US 
‘until we began to shoot among them, when they rose squealing 
