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wings four feet from tip to tip, and its body is a foot 
long from the nose to the insertion of the tail. In 
colour, it resembles a fox, and its head and nose also 
are similar to that animal, which has acquired it 
the name of the flying fox. Its size in appearance, 
when at rest, is equal to that of a large fowl, and it 
is then seen, enveloped in its wings, and sticking with 
its head downwards at the tops of the tallest trees; 
but when in motion, nothing can be more formidable. 
Clouds of them hover about the woods both by day 
and night, darkening the air, and destroying the ripe 
fruits of the country. Nothing is free from their 
depredations. They devour, indiscriminately, fruit, 
flesh, and insects; drink the juice of the palm-tree, 
destroy fowls and other domestic animals, unless 
preserved with great care, and often fasten upon the 
inhabitants themselves, attacking them in the face, 
and inflicting terrible wounds. They usually sally 
out in the afternoon, and are heard at night in the 
forests at more than two miles distance, with a horri¬ 
ble din; but at the approach of day they begin to 
retire. These qualities have caused many to consider 
it as the Harpy of the ancients; they do not, how¬ 
ever, deter the natives from eagerly pursuing them for 
food, their flesh being delicate and much esteemed. # 
* We should have been inclined to doubt this, had not Rochon 
assured us that he frequently ate of them and found them so 
good. Travellers are certainly often very hungry , but we are 
led to suppose he would not have touched them where good 
beef was to be had, if he had not found them eatable. 
