GREAT BAT OF JAVA. 
43 
On quitting this house of mourning, I hastened to a grove, where 
I expected to find many of the great bats of Java, which had been 
represented to me as Vampires, and which in look and ferocity might 
be supposed to appropriate the fables of those frightful beings. I 
had often seen, since my arrival in Java, flying in the day-time at 
a great elevation, an animal making a noise so resembling the cawing 
of a crow, that at first I mistook it for a species of this bird. I now 
saw many of its species suspended in large clusters with their heads 
downward from the branches of trees ; and so firmly did they adhere, 
that although I fired at them, and must have destroyed two or three, 
they did not fall. By throwing large stones, I obliged them to quit 
their resting places and to take wing, many of them with young 
ones clinging to their breasts. They then hovered about, screeched 
violently, and, flapping their enormous wings, circled close over my 
head, reminding me of the harpies of antiquity. After some trials, 
I succeeded in shooting two, a male and female : the male being the 
larger. Nothing could be more hideous than their aspect. Their 
bodies, covered with long hair, resemble that of a fox in colour, 
smell, and form, but that of a full grown rat in size. They are sus- 
pended between wings, similar in texture to those of a common bat, 
but extending five feet from one extremity to the other. The tail, 
which is four inches long, is also like that of the fox, and is enclosed 
by the membrane uniting the hinder extremities. The female, which 
was only wounded in one of its wings, endeavoured to strike me 
with the other, screeching violently at the same time, and grinning 
horribly. When left to itself it exerted its fury on the wounded limb, 
which it smashed with its teeth. 
The great bat of Java *, as far as I could ascertain, is not carni- 
vorous, but is much dreaded for the destruction it occasions to fruit 
trees, whole orchards of which it denudes of their blossoms. The 
* The great bat of Java bears the same name as that of New Holland, flying-fox. It 
also in some respects resembles it, but differs from it in having an undivided membrane 
between its hinder extremities. 
G 2 
