of Mr Wolf has been derived.[24] There is something very odd in the
appearance of such an animal, suspended as it is during the day head
downwards, in a position the very sight of which suggests to the
looker-on ideas of nightmare and apoplexy. As the head peers out from
the membrane, contracted about the body and investing it as in a bag,
and the strange creature chews a piece of apple presented by its keeper,
the least curious observer must be struck with the peculiarity of the
position, and cannot fail to admire the velvety softness and great
elasticity of the membrane which forms its wings. It must have been from
an exaggerated account of the fox-bats of the Eastern Islands that the
ancients derived their ideas of the dreaded Harpies, those fabulous
winged monsters sent out by the relentless Juno, and whose names are
synonymous with rapine and cruelty.

Some of these bats, before they were thoroughly known, frightened
British sailors not a little when they met with them. We have given an
anecdote, illustrative of this, in a preceding page.

Dr Forster, who accompanied Captain Cook on the voyage round the world
from 1772 to 1775, observed fox-bats at the Friendly Islands, where they
were seen in large groups of hundreds. Our traveller even notices that
some of them flew about the whole day, doubtless from being disturbed by
the wandering crews of the British discovery ships. He saw a Casuarina
tree of large size, the branches of which were festooned with at least
five hundred of these pendent Cheiroptera in various attitudes of ease,
according to the habits and notions of the bat tribes, who can hang
either by the hind or by the fore-feet. He noticed that they skimmed
over the water with wonderful facility, and he saw one in the act of
swimming, though he cannot say that it did so with either ease or
expertness; they are known, however, to frequent the water in order to
wash themselves from any impurities on their fur and wings, as well as
to get rid of the vermin which may be infesting them.

Captain Lort Stokes found the red-necked species to be very abundant,
during his survey of the north coast of Australia in H.M.S. _Beagle_. As
the boats were engaged in the survey, flights of these bats kept
hovering over them, uttering a disagreeable screeching noise and filling
the air with a faint mildewy odour, far from agreeable to the smell. The
sailors gave these bats the name of "monkey-birds," without being aware
th