204 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Aug. i7, 1912 
Australian Flying-Foxes 
By FRANK S. SMITH 
T HE name flying-fox, given popularly to one 
of our animals, is rather misleading, as the 
owner of the cognomen is really a large, 
fruit-eating bat. Their head, however, is, on a 
small scale, very like that of the fox, and in of¬ 
fensive smell they more than hold their own with 
the fox. Probably, too, the reddish fiery color 
had something to do with the name. These fruit¬ 
eating bats form a class of their own. The largest 
species, the speckled flying-fox, has a body about 
twelve inches long, while the smallest is not 
much more than two inches long. Their range 
is the whole of the eastern portion of Australia, 
but they are most abundant in the tropical and 
sub-tropical districts. 
I well remember my first introduction to the 
flying-fox. I was staying with a friend in North¬ 
ern N. E. Wales, who had an orchard. After 
tea, at about 7 p. m., he took down a gun and 
asked me to come with him and see the flying- 
foxes. In about half an hour he pointed out 
what seemed a small cloud on the horizon. As 
it drew nearer, however, I saw that it was a 
great flock of, apparently, some sort of bird. 
Then it began to pass over us and my friend 
began to fire an odd shot at the mass, “just to 
encourage them to keep going,” he explained. 
The flock was a continuous affair and must have 
been a mile long. It was flying too high for the 
shot to kill any of them, but there was always 
a chance of some of them coming down to the 
orchard if they were not watched. 
A few days later we rode out to the roost¬ 
ing place of the flying-foxes. It was in the heart 
of a dense, almost tropical, forest. “How are 
you going to find them?” I asked my friend. 
“Wait, and you’ll see, or rather smell,” he smil¬ 
ingly added. Presently a sickly, musky odor 
struck my nostrils. It got worse and worse until 
it became an appalling stink. Then we stopped. 
“Look above you,” said my friend. I looked and 
was amazed to see the trees loaded, apparently, 
with reddish and dark fruits, but which I knew 
by the awful smell to be flying-foxes. There 
were countless thousands of them. Branch after 
branch held its load of foxes like a row of 
gooseberries in a good season. The fox sleeps 
head downward, hanging by his claws, and with 
his wide, semi-transparent wings folded about 
him like a shroud. In one tree there was a 
very curious sight. It was so overcrowded that 
hundreds of the bats were hanging to each other, 
and on three or four of the branches there were 
several tiers of them, one hanging to the other. 
In these cases the combined weight had bent the 
branches almost to breaking point, and the bats 
looked like bee swarms on a mammoth scale. 
My friend had a gun and I suggested shooting 
at one of the bunches, but he objected, as the 
disturbed bats would fly out in thousands and 
cover us with excreta. However, when we got 
out on the edge of the colony on to a clearing 
he shot a couple for me to examine. They bear 
a strong resemblance to the ordinary insect-eat¬ 
ing bat, only they are much larger and more 
powerfully built. On the extremity of what may 
be called the leading fingers, there are claws. 
The flying-fox is a great lover of fruit, and 
will travel miles from its roosting place to get 
it. Our Australian forests are rather poorly sup¬ 
plied with wild fruits, except in the tropical por¬ 
tions. But the bats soon found out the orchards 
of the farmers and they do a lot of damage to 
them every year. A flock of flying-foxes will 
mess up an orchard in a single night, so those 
farmers living in their vicinity are always on the 
watch for them. So powerful is their odor that 
even if they just brush a peach or plum with 
their wing, the fruit becomes uneatable. I 
did not believe this until I was offered an ap¬ 
parently good peach so treated. It was quite 
untouched so far as the eye could see, but it 
smelled like a dead shark. 
The flesh of this bat is, as may be expected 
from its diet, very succulent, but the unfortu¬ 
nate smell is again the trouble. If the smell 
could only be got rid of, flying-fox would, I am 
certain, quickly become such a popular article of 
diet that the sportsmen would soon keep them 
within bounds. But I have never found a white 
man game enough to enjoy them. At a black’s 
camp one day I was given a piece of one to 
taste and found it very good, all but the smell. 
That was so bad that I had to force myself to 
eat it. The blacks (aboriginals), however, eat 
them readily enough, although when they can 
get it, they prefer ’possum or kangaroo. The 
blacks catch the flying-fox in a variety of ways. 
The two principal methods are by the use of 
smoke and with the boomerang. When the 
blacks discover a roosting place, they build a 
big fire beneath the trees, feeding the fire lib¬ 
erally with green branches so as to raise a big 
smoke. The smoke stupefies the bats, and some 
fall to the ground, while the others can be 
knocked off the branches without alarming the 
flock. It is curious that the smoke does not 
make the bats move off. On the contrary, they 
will hang on until they smother. They hang so 
firmly unless previously smoked, it is difficult to 
dislodge them with the boomerang. The boom¬ 
erang, I may explain, is a black fellow’s weapon 
and is a curved stick, with one side flat and the 
other rounded, about two feet long, bent at an 
obtuse angle. This is the famous weapon which 
can be made to return through the air to the 
thrower. If, however, it hits anything, its course 
ends. 
Another method pursued by the blacks is to 
wait on the edge of the forest for the bats either 
leaving or returning. As they come past, the 
black fellow will send boomerang after boom¬ 
erang whirling into their midst, usually with 
good results. He may send a dozen boomerangs 
in this fashion before he stops to collect the 
slain. He usually cooks the bats by roasting 
them whole, in their skins, on a small fire. 
Mr. Le Souef mentions in his book, “Wild 
Life in Australia,” having seen some enormous 
flocks of this bat. One flock was flying from 
an island on the Queensland (Australia) coast 
to the mainland. The air was full of the bats, 
and the flight continued for over an hour, until 
it was too dark to see any more of them. On 
another occasion, near Singapore, he saw an 
enormous flock at broad mid-day flying appar¬ 
ently to a new camping ground. “They flew high, 
and when passing between us and the sun, cast 
a shadow and hid the sun from view for some 
time. We estimated that there must have been 
over half a million flying-foxes.” 
The flying-fox is found all over the islands 
to the north of Australia, known as the East 
Indian Archipelago, where the rich wild tropical 
fruits supply it with an abundance of food. In 
the southern portions of Australia it is becom¬ 
ing scarcer, as the forests are being cleared off. 
As it is of absolutely no use, and is certainly no 
ornament, no one will miss it if it becomes ex¬ 
tinct. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
A New York Medico, who appears promi¬ 
nently among the dry-fly exponents, and who 
now is proving the book on dry-fly theories in 
the Adirondacks, came into the hotel after a 
fish et al supper at one of the Adirondack clubs 
the other night. There being no elevator in the 
rural hostelry, he tip-toed up three flights of 
creaky stairs in the wee sma’ hours. Stealthily 
as he thought, he opened the bed room door and 
started to slip out of his clothes and into bed 
before wifey shook off the control of Morpheus. 
Removing shoe number one he placed it gently 
on an imaginary chair in the ambient atmos¬ 
phere. The shoe struck the floor and awoke 
wifey. Rising on her elbow she observed hubby 
standing in the dark room in front of a win¬ 
dow, through which the moon shone full on his 
face, above which topped his hat. Wifey, some¬ 
what surprised to find her inferior fraction so 
remiss as to keep his head piece undoffed in the 
house, said: “Bill, why didn’t you take off 
your hat outside?” With a start of surprise, 
and after a second of deep thought, he replied: 
“It was too dark in the hall.” 
* * * 
I had an amusing experience with a battery 
on a ducking trip to Ragged Island, or rather my 
friend “Mike” did. We were tied off Lane’s in 
shallow water, and the shooting was fair, Mike 
downing eight “boobies” and one canvas in his 
first trick, though it was his first time in a “sink 
box.” Howard, my guide, poled me up to re¬ 
lieve him, but before we got alongside, Mike, 
thinking there was a wing at the foot of the 
battery as on the other three sides, started to¬ 
ward us and walked right off into the bay. The 
water was only up to his waist, though slightly 
chilly, and he was soon warmed up again as the 
result of seme vigorous sprinting up and down 
the marsh nearby and internal applications from 
my flask. I didn’t think I'd ever be able to stop 
laughing at the startled look of amazement on 
his face when he first came up after his sudden 
dip. Grizzly King. 
The next three months will add many sub¬ 
scriptions to Forest and Stream. 
