ht I note that his ears are incessantly
moving, but not turning this way and that to catch sounds--just
flapping, flapping, as if to cool his great temples. So have I seen the
gigantic fruit bats, called flying foxes in India, hanging in hundreds
in the upper branches of a tall peepul tree at noon, feeling too hot to
sleep, and all fanning themselves in unison with one wing--a comic
spectacle. And at each flap of the elephant's ears I would observe that
a cloud of flies (for the elephant is not too great to be pestered by
the despicable hordes of beggars for blood) were dislodged from their
feeding grounds about his head and neck, and, trying to settle about his
rear parts, were driven back again by the swinging of his tail. Then I
should say that ear is just a fan. How significant it is that among the
emblems of royalty in the East the three chiefest are an
umbrella-bearer, two men who stand behind and swing great punkahs
modelled on the elephant's ear, and two others carrying yak's tails
wherewith to scare the flies from the royal person! The elephant is a
rajah!

There is another mysterious ear which is a stumbling-block to the simple
theory-monger. It is in fashion among a tribe of bats to which belongs
the so-called vampire of India. This monster is fond of coming into your
bedroom at midnight through the open windows, but not to suck your
blood, for it has little in common with the true vampire of South
America. It brings its dinner with it and hangs from the ceiling,
"feeding like horses when you hear them feed." You hear its jaws
working--crunch, crunch, crunch, but feel too drowsy to get up and expel
it.

When you get up in the morning there on your clean dressing table, just
below the place where it hung, are the bloody remains of a sparrow, or
the crumbs of a tree-frog. The servants will tell you that the sparrow
was killed and eaten by a rat, but if you rise softly next night when
you hear the sound of feeding, and shut the windows, you will find a
goblin hanging from the ceiling in the morning, hideous beyond the
power of words to tell. Its ears, thin, membranous and longer than its
head, tremble incessantly. Inside of them is another pair, much smaller
than the first, and tuned to their octave, I should guess, while two
membranous smelling trumpets of similar pattern rise over the nose. What
is the meaning of these repulsive instruments, and how does that strange
beast catch sparrows? When it comes out a