“These bats take possession during the day of particular trees, upon which they hang like so much ripe fruit, but they take it into their heads to have some exercise every morning between the hours of 9 and 11, during which they are wheeling about in the air by the hundred, seemingly enjoying the sunshine and warmth.  They then return to their fevourite tree, and remain quiet until the evening, when they move off towards their feeding ground.  There is a great chattering and screaming amongst them before they can get agreeably settled in their places after their morning exercise; quarrelling, I suppose, for the most comfortable spots to hang on by during the rest of the day.  The trees they take possession of become nearly stripped of leaves; and it is a curious sight to see them in such immense numbers.  I do not allow them to be disturbed.”]

The flying-fox is killed by the natives for the sake of its flesh, which I have been told, by a gentleman who has eaten it, resembles that of the hare.[1]

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

There are several varieties (some 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 bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their prey at night.  I doubt whether this conjecture be well founded; but at least it would seem that in their peculiar oeconomy some additional power is required to supplement that of vision, as in insects that of touch is superadded, in the most sensitive development, to that of sight.  Hence, it is possible that the extended screen stretched at the back of their nostrils may be intended by nature to facilitate the collection and conduction of odours, as the vast development of the shell of the ear in the same family is designed to assist in the collection of sounds—­and thus to reinforce their vision when in pursuit of their prey at twilight by the superior sensitiveness of the organs of hearing and smell, as they are already remarkable for that marvellous sense of touch which enables them, even when deprived of sight, to direct their flight with security, by means of the delicate nerves of the wing.  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.[2]

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

[Footnote 2:  For a notice of the curious parasite peculiar to the bat, see Note A. end of this chapter.]