which might have stood at the beginning closes the long-drawn description-"His (Love's) greatest strength lies in woman: any one who can escape her is a mighty champion indeed."

Bats. Of bats—the leathern-winged jackals of the air-there is not much to be said, for although India has an immense number and variety of these wonderful and most useful creatures, the people seem scarcely to notice them. It takes a naturalist to admire and appreciate darkness-loving animals ; and among Indian bats there is a fine field, especially those adorned by nature with elaborate. leaf-like processes on the nostrils, strange and fantastic beyond telling.

Those, however, who have been received in dull houses will enjoy the fine irony of a saying which runs, "The bat had a guest (and said), 'I'm hanging, you hang too.' No need to expound this five-word jewel, since most of us know houses whose inmates seem to hang in a torpid row, and where we resign ourselves on entering to be hung up in a similar sleepy fashion. There is also a story about Solomon, the birds, and the bats, but it has no very effective point. I know of no saying in any tongue acknowledging the great utility of the bat in keeping down an excess of insect life.

The large fruit-eating bat or flying-fox is a noble creature, looming largest, perhaps, when in the still breathless evenings he beats his noiseless way high over the wan waters of Bombay harbour or the adjacent creeks, dark against a sky in which there

The

lingers a lurid flush of crimson and orange. lowest castes eat flying-foxes, which are probably of excellent flavour, seeing they grow fat on the best of the fruit. They are regularly eaten in the Malay Archipelago, and Mr. Wallace says that when properly dressed they have no offensive fumet, and taste like hare. I once kept one, but he could scarcely be called an amusing pet, his strong point being his enormous appetite for bananas. On one occasion he escaped and began to fly away, but promptly came back, for he was mobbed by flights of crows, who had never seen such a creature before. Crows go early to bed, and the appearance of this monster bat in their own daylight seemed to be an outrage on their rights and feelings. So they chivied him-if I may be allowed the expressionmuch as the street boys are said to have chivied Jonas Hanway when he appeared in London streets with the first umbrella. The flying-fox was in a great fright, knowing that a single stroke of a crow's beak would ruin the membrane of his vans, more delicate than any silk ever stretched on a "paragon" frame.

In pairing time flying-foxes are lively all day, though they do not fly abroad, and the trees in which they hang in great reefs and clusters are so noisy with their quarrelling, screaming, and fighting, as to be a serious nuisance to a quiet village.

CHAPTER III

OF MONKEYS

"His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red,
And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head.
His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried
To be an artless Bandar loose upon the mountain side!"

R. K.

OME of the respect in which these animals are held by Hindus is a reflection of the popularity of Hanuman, or (in Southern India) of Mâruti, the monkey general of the great Hindu epic-the devoted henchman of Ram Chandra, and a marvel of valour and address combined with gentleness. He has now become a god, and is one of the most widely worshipped of Hindu deities. Pictures and rude. images are to be seen of him everywhere, but he is not represented in the more ancient Hindu sculptures. A notion exists among Hindus that the English may be his descendants through a female

MONKEY GOD

servant of the demon king, who had charge

of Sita in captivity, and who treated the prisoner so well that Rama blessed her, prophesying that she should become the mother of a race that would possess the land, and whom Hanuman took to wife. This can scarcely be made out from the poem, but the tradition exists. Others, again, say that the English came from the "monkey army," which unlovely phrase is occasionally used to describe the British nation.

But, while the enthusiastic cult of Hanumān as a divinity is a comparatively modern development of Hinduism, the fondness of Hindus for monkeys.

is of very ancient date. Ælian describes the

offerings of rice which are still customary, and at sacred places, as Benares, Ajodhia, and Muttra, they are regularly fed, and it is regarded as an abominable act of sacrilege to kill one. A large temple at Benares under the invocation of Durga (Devi, Kali, etc.) has swarms of monkeys attached to it, but they do not appear, as might be expected, to be usually attendant on shrines of the Monkey God himself. They naturally cluster round groves frequented by devotees of various kinds for the sake of scraps of food which they are sure to receive there, and because they are safe from molestation. Muhammadan saints as well as Hindu sâdhus show kindness to these creatures, and it is quite intelligible that their gambols should serve to amuse the large and languid leisure of professional holiness.

The brown macacus rhesus is the commonest

type and most frequently seen both in the hills and plains. Ælian in his description mixes up the Macaque with the true Hanuman, the tall, longtailed, black-faced, white-whiskered langur (Presbytes illiger), clad in an overcoat of silver gray. The latter has a face that reminds one of Mr. Joel

Harris's "Uncle Remus," and is, in his way, a king of the jungle, nor is he so frequently met with in confinement as his brown brother. In some parts of India troops of langurs come bounding with a mighty air of interest and curiosity to see the railway trains pass, their long tails uplifted like notes of interrogation; but frequently, when fairly perched on wall or tree alongside, they seem to