n 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. I. 



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. 



