One tiny little bat, not much larger than the humble bee[1], and of a glossy black colour, is sometimes to be seen about Colombo.  It is so familiar and gentle that it will alight on the cloth during dinner, and manifests so little alarm that it seldom makes any effort to escape before a wine glass can be inverted to secure it.

[Footnote 1:  It is a very small Singhalese variety of Scotophilus Coromandelicus, F.  Cuv.]

Although not strictly in order, this seems not an inappropriate place to notice one of the most curious peculiarities connected with the bats—­their singular parasite, the Nycteribia.[1] On cursory observation this creature appears to have neither head, antennae, eyes, nor mouth; and the earlier observers of its structure satisfied themselves that the place of the latter was supplied by a cylindrical sucker, which, being placed between the shoulders, the insect had no option but to turn on its back to feed.  Another anomaly was thought to compensate for this apparent inconvenience;—­its three pairs of legs, armed with claws, are so arranged that they seem to be equally distributed over its upper and under sides, the creature being thus enabled to use them like hands, and to grasp the strong hairs above it while extracting its nourishment.

[Footnote 1:  This extraordinary creature had formerly been discovered only on a few European bats.  Joinville figured one which he found on the large roussette (the flying-fox), and says he had seen another on a bat of the same family.  Dr. Templeton observed them in Ceylon in great abundance on the fur of the Scotophilus Coromandelicus, and they will, no doubt, be found on many others.]

It moves, in fact, by rolling itself rapidly along, rotating like a wheel on the extremities of its spokes, or like the clown in a pantomime, hurling himself forward on hands and feet alternately.  Its celerity is so great that Colonel Montague, who was one of the first to describe it minutely[1], says its speed exceeds that of any known insect, and as its joints are so flexible as to yield in every direction (like what mechanics call a “ball and socket"), its motions are exceedingly grotesque as it tumbles through the fur of the bat.

[Footnote 1:  Celeripes vespertilionis, Mont.  Lin.  Trans. xi. p.11.]

[Illustration:  NYCTERBIA.]

To enable it to attain its marvellous velocity, each foot is armed with two sharp hooks, with elastic opposable pads, so that the hair can not only be rapidly seized and firmly held, but as quickly disengaged, as the creature whirls away in its headlong career.

The insects to which it bears the nearest affinity, are the Hippoboscidae, or “spider flies,” that infest birds and horses; but, unlike them, the Nycteribia is unable to fly.

Its strangest peculiarity, and that which gave rise to the belief that it was headless, is its faculty when at rest of throwing back its head and pressing it close between its shoulders till the under side becomes uppermost, not a vestige of head being discernible where we would naturally look for it, and the whole seeming but a casual inequality on its back.