18 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. L 
have the spoil wrested from it by its intrusive com- 
panions, before it can make good its way to some secure 
retreat in which to devour it unmolested. In such 
conflicts they bite viciously, tear each other with their 
hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking to flight, the 
persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he 
hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured 
in the claws and opposable thumb of the other, he 
hastily reduces it to lumps, with which he stuffs his- 
cheek pouches till they become distended like those of 
a monkey ; then suspended in safety, he commences to 
chew and suck the pieces, rejecting the refuse with his 
tongue. 
To drink, which it does by lapping, the Pteropus 
suspends itself head downwards from a branch above the 
water. 
Insects, caterpillars, birds' eggs, and young birds are 
devoured by them; and the Singhalese say that the 
flying-fox will even attack a tree snake. It is killed 
by the natives for the sake of its flesh, which, I have 
been told by a gentleman who has eaten of it, resembles 
that of the hare. 1 It is strongly attracted to the coco- 
nut trees during the period when toddy is drawn for 
distillation, and exhibits, it is said, at such times, symp- 
toms resembling intoxication. 
Neither the flying-fox, nor any other bat that I know 
of in Ceylon, ever hybernates. 
There are several varieties (one of them peculiar to 
the island) of the horse-shoe-headed Rhinolophus, with 
the strange leaf-like appendage erected on the extremity 
of the nose. 
1 In Western India the native pronounce it delicate, and far from 
Portuguese eat the flying-fox, and disagreeable in flavour. 
