ormed,
sentient nerves of the utmost delicacy are distributed, by means of
which the animal is enabled during the darkness to direct its motions
with security, avoiding objects against contact with which at such times
its eyes and other senses would be insufficient to protect it.[2]
Spallanzani ascertained the perfection of this faculty by a series of
cruel experiments, by which he demonstrated that bats, even after their
eyes had been destroyed, and their external organs, of smell and hearing
obliterated, were still enabled to direct their flight with unhesitating
confidence, avoiding even threads suspended to intercept them. But after
ascertaining the fact, Spallanzani was slow to arrive at its origin; and
ascribed the surprising power to the existence of some sixth
supplementary sense, the enjoyment of which was withheld from other
animals. Cuvier, however, dissipated the obscurity by showing the seat
of this extraordinary endowment to be in the wings, the superficies of
which retains the exquisite sensitiveness to touch that is inherent in
the palms of the human hand and the extremities of the fingers, as well
as in the feet of some of the mammalia.[3] The face and head of the
_Pteropus_ are covered with brownish-grey hairs, the neck and chest are
dark ferruginous grey, and the rest of the body brown, inclining to
black.

[Footnote 1: [Greek: cheir] the "hand," and [Greek: pteron] a "wing."]

[Footnote 2: See BELL _On the Hand_, ch. iii. p. 70;]

[Footnote 3: See article on _Cheiroptera_, in TODD'S
_Cyclopiadia of Anatomy and Physiology_, vol. i. p. 599.]

These active and energetic creatures, though chiefly frugivorous, are
to some extent insectivorous also, as attested by their teeth[1], 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-imbul_[2], one of the
silk-cotton trees, is putting forth its flower-buds, of which they are
singularly fond. By day they suspend themselves from the highest
branches, hanging by the claws of the hind legs, with the head turned
upwards, 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