se
words--_kehel_ or _kela_, the plantain, and _voulha_, which is the
Singhalese for bat, the specimen on which Gray founded his genus
being the following:--

NO. 105. KERIVOULA PICTA.
_The Painted Bat_ (_Jerdon's No. 53_).

HABITAT.--India generally, Burmah and Ceylon.

DESCRIPTION.--"Fur fine, woolly; above yellowish-red or golden
rufous, beneath less brilliant and more yellow; wing membranes inky
black, with rich orange stripes along the fingers extending in
indentations into the membrane."--_Jerdon_.

Ears moderate, laid forwards; the tips reach midway between the eyes
and the middle of the muzzle; tragus very long and straight; thumb
short; wings to the base of the toes.

SIZE.--Head and body, 1-1/2 inch; tail, 1.6 inch; expanse about 10
inches.

This beautiful little bat is found all over India, but is not common;
it is occasionally caught in plantain gardens, as it resorts to the
leaves of that tree for shelter during the night, and may sometimes
be discovered in the folds of a leaf. As Jerdon remarks, it looks
more like a butterfly or a moth when disturbed during the day time.
Dr. Dobson pertinently observes that the colours of this bat appear
to be the result of the "protective mimicry" which we see so often
in insects, the Mantidea and other genera, the colours being adapted
to their abiding places. He alludes to Mr. Swinhoe's account ('P.
Z. S.,' 1862, p. 357) of an allied species:--"The body of this bat
was of an orange yellow, but the wings were painted with orange yellow
and black. It was caught suspended head downwards on a cluster of
the round fruit of the longan tree. (_Nephelium_ [_Scytalia_]
_longanum_) [the _ash phul_ of Bengal]. Now this tree is an evergreen,
and all the year through some portion of its foliage is undergoing
decay, the particular leaves being in such a stage partially orange
and black; this bat can therefore at all seasons suspend from its
branches and elude its enemies by its resemblance to the leaf of the
tree." This bat was named by Pallas _Vespertilio pictus_. Boddaert
in 1785 termed it _Vesp. kerivoula_, and Gray afterwards took the
second specific name for that of the genus, leaving the first as it is.

KERIVOULA PALLIDA.
(_Jerdon's No. 54._)

This is synonymous with _Vespertilio formosus_, which see further
on, it is the same as the _Kerivoula formosa_ of Gray.

NO. 106. KERIVOULA PAPILLOSA.
(_Jerdon's No. 55._)

HABITAT.--Java, but said by Jerdon to hav