nly its
upturned head uncovered. Its fur is thus protected from damp and rain,
and to some extent its body is sheltered from the sun.

As it collects its food by means of its mouth, either when on the
wing, or when suspended within reach of it, the flying-fox is always
more or less liable to have the spoil wrested from it by its intrusive
companions, before it can make good its way to some secure retreat in
which to devour it unmolested. In such conflicts they bite viciously,
tear each other with their hooks, and scream incessantly, till, taking
to flight, the persecuted one reaches some place of safety, where he
hangs by one foot, and grasping the fruit he has secured in the claws
and opposable thumb of the other, he hastily reduces it to lumps, with
which he stuffs his cheek pouches till they become distended like those
of a monkey; then suspended in safety, he commences to chew and suck the
pieces, rejecting the refuse with his tongue.

To drink, which it does by lapping, the _Pteropus_ suspends
itself head downwards from a branch above the water.

Insects, caterpillars, birds' eggs, and young birds are devoured by
them; and the Singhalese say that the flying-fox will even attack a
tree snake. It is killed by the natives for the sake of its flesh,
which, I have been told by a gentleman who has eaten of it, resembles
that of the hare.[1] It is strongly attracted to the coconut trees
during the period when toddy is drawn for distillation, and exhibits,
it is said, at such times, symptoms resembling intoxication.

[Footnote 1: In Western India the native Portuguese eat the
flying-fox, and pronounce it delicate, and far from disagreeable in
flavour.]

Neither the flying-fox, nor any other bat that I know of in Ceylon,
ever hybernates.

There are several varieties (one of them peculiar to the island) of
the horse-shoe-headed _Rhinolophus_, with the strange leaf-like
appendage erected on the extremity of the nose.

It has been suggested that the insectivorous bats, though nocturnal,
are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take
their prey by night.

[Illustration: RINOLOPHUS.]

I doubt whether this conjecture be well founded; it certainly does not
apply to the _Pteropus_ and the other frugivorous species, in
which the faculty of sight is singularly clear. As regards the others,
it is possible that in their peculiar oeconomy some additional power
may be required to act in concert with th