in India, the Malayan Archipelago, Australia, Africa, and even in outlying islands at some distance from their main range, these Fruit Bats occur in great numbers.  Swarms of them roost together during the day, hanging from the branches of the trees which they select as their regular resting-place, and taking wing at sunset, fly off frequently to great distances in search of their favorite articles of food; for they by no means devour indiscriminately any kind of fruit, but show a distinct preference for particular sorts, generally selecting such as are also prized by their human competitors.  Hence they often do considerable damage in plantations of fruit trees, as when they meet with articles that suit taste, they seem, like some human gourmands, not to know when to leave off eating.  Of one of the smaller Indian species, the Margined Fruit Bat, Mr. Dobson obtained a living specimen in Calcutta, and he gives the following account of its voracious appetite:—­He gave it “a ripe banana, which, with the skin removed, weighed exactly two ounces.  The animal immediately, as if famished with hunger, fell upon the fruit, seized it between the thumbs and the index fingers, and took large mouthfuls out of it, opening the mouth to the fullest extent with extreme voracity.  In the space of three hours the whole fruit was consumed.  Next morning the Bat was killed, and found to weigh one ounce, half the weight of the food eaten in three hours!  Indeed, the animal when eating seemed to be a kind of living mill”—­so continuously does its food pass through it.

From the statements of some writers, it would appear that although these Bats live chiefly upon fruits, they occasionally, like many other frugivorous animals, diversify their diet with animal food, devouring insects of various kinds, caterpillars, birds’ eggs, and even young birds, while there seems to be some reason to believe that one species even feeds upon shell-fish which it picks up upon the seashore.

The fruit-eating Bats of this group are not found in the warmer parts of America, but some American Bats feed chiefly upon fruits, while many of the large essentially insectivorous species which occur there vary their diet more or less with fruits, and also occasionally attack and devour other vertebrate animals.  Some of them—­but it is still very doubtful how many—­have another habit connected with their feeding, which renders them very decidedly objectionable, namely, that of inflicting wounds upon birds and mammals, even including man himself, and sucking up the blood that flows from them.  This charge has been brought against many Bats of South and Central America, some of which have been commonly named Vampires in consequence, after the ghostly blood-suckers, which were formerly the objects of so much superstitious terror in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe; but so far as can be made out from a consideration of the evidence, a verdict of “not proven,” at all events,