delicate; the colonel says, writing of the
_Pteropus medius_, a species found in India, "I can personally testify
that their flesh is delicate and without disagreeable flavour."

The Javanese fox-bat occasionally affords amusement to the colonists as
well as natives, who chase it, according to Dr Horsfield, "during the
moonlight nights, which, in the latitude of Java, are uncommonly serene.
He is watched in his descent to the fruit-trees, and a discharge of
small shot readily brings him to the ground. By this means I frequently
obtained four or five individuals in the course of an hour." The natives
of New Caledonia, according to Dr Forster, use the hair of these great
bats in ropes, and in the tassels to their clubs, while they interweave
the hair among the threads of the _Cyperus squarrosus_, a grassy-looking
plant which they employ for that purpose.

William Dampier,[26] in 1687, observed the habits of a fox-bat on one of
the Philippine Islands, though he has exaggerated its size when he
judged "that the wings stretched out in length, could not be less
asunder than seven or eight foot from tip to tip." He records that "in
the evening, as soon as the sun was set, these creatures would begin to
take their flight from this island in swarms like bees, directing their
flight over to the main island. Thus we should see them rising up from
the island till night hindered our sight; and in the morning, as soon as
it was light, we should see them returning again like a cloud to the
small island till sunrising. This course they kept constantly while we
lay here, affording us every morning and evening an hour's diversion in
gazing at them and talking about them." Dr Horsfield describes the
species, which is abundant in the lower parts of Java, as having the
same habit. During the day it retreats to the branches of a tree of the
genus _Ficus_, where it passes the greater portion of the day in sleep,
"hanging motionless, ranged in succession, and often in close contact,
they have little resemblance to living beings, and by a person not
accustomed to their economy, are readily mistaken for a part of the
tree, or for a fruit of uncommon size suspended from its branches." The
doctor describes their society as being generally silent during the day,
except when a contention arises among them to get out of the influence
of the sun, when they utter a sharp piercing shriek. Their claws are so
sharp, and their attachment is consequently s