■20 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. I. 
bee l , and of a glossy black colour, is sometimes to be 
seen about Colombo. It is so familiar and gentle that 
it will alight on the cloth during dinner, and manifests 
so little alarm that it seldom makes any effort to escape 
before a wine glass can be inverted to secure it. 
Although not strictly in order, this seems not an in- 
appropriate place to notice one of the most curious pe- 
culiarities connected with the bats — their singular 
parasite, the Nycteribia. 2 On cursory observation this 
creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor 
mouth ; and the earlier observers of its structure satisfied 
themselves that the plaee of the latter was supplied 
by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between 
the shoulders, the insect had no option but to turn on 
its back to feed. Another anomaly was thought to com- 
pensate for this apparent inconvenience ; — its three 
pairs of legs, armed with claws, are so arranged that 
they seem to be equally distributed over its upper and 
under sides, the creature being thus enabled to use 
them like hands, and to grasp the strong hairs above it 
while extracting its nourishment. 
It moves, in fact, by rolling itself rapidly along, ro- 
tating like a wheel on the extremities of its spokes, or 
like the clown in a pantomime, hurling himself forward 
on hands and feet alternately. Its celerity is so great 
that Colonel Montague, who was one of the first to 
describe it minutely 3 , says its speed exceeds that of any 
1 It is a very small Singhalese of the same family. Dr. Temple- 
variety of Scotophilia Coromande- ton observed them in Ceylon in 
licus, F. Guv. great abundance on the fur of the 
2 This extraordinary creature Scotophilus CGromanclelicus, and 
had formerly been discovered only they will, no doubt, be found on 
on a few European bats. Joinville many others. 
figured one which he found on the 3 Celeripes vespertilionis, Mont. 
large roussette (the flying-fox), and Lin. Trans, xi. p. 11, 
says he had seen another on a bat 
