IG 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. L 



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-bud s> 

 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 



