16 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. I. 
These active and energetic creatures, though chiefly 
frugivorous, are to some extent insectivorous also, as at- 
tested by their teeth \ as well as by their habits. They 
feed, amongst other things, on the guava, the plantain, 
the rose-apple, and the fruit of the various fig-trees. 
Flying foxes are abundant in all the maritime districts, 
especially at the season when the pulum-imhul 2 , one 
of the silk-cotton trees, is putting forth its flower-buds, 
of which they are singularly fond. By day they sus- 
pend themselves from the highest branches, hanging by 
the claws of the hind legs, with the head turned up- 
wards, and pressing the chin against the breast. At 
sunset taking wing, they hover, with a murmuring sound 
occasioned by the beating of their broad membranous 
wings, around the fruit trees, on which they feed till 
morning, when they resume their pensile attitude as 
before. 
A favourite resort of these bats is to the lofty 
india-rubber trees, which on one side overhang the 
Botanic Gardens of Paradenia in the vicinity of Kandy. 
Thither for some years past, they have congregated, 
chiefly in the autumn, taking their departure when 
the figs of the ficus elastica are consumed. Here 
they hang in such prodigious numbers, that frequently, 
large branches give way beneath their accumulated weight. 
Every forenoon, generally between the hours of 9 and 
11a. m., they take to wing, apparently for exercise, and 
possibly to sun their wings and fur, and dry them after 
the dews of the early morning. On these occasions, their 
numbers are quite surprising, flying in clouds as thick as 
1 Those which I have examined the upper jaw and ten in the lower, 
have four minute incisors in each longitudinally grooved, and with a 
jaw, with two canines and a very cutting edge directed backwards, 
minute pointed tooth behind each 2 Eriodendron Orientale, Stead. 
canine. They have six molars in 
