tives malmags, or hobgoblins. And they
are well named, for they look like creatures of a distorted imagination
more than real, living animals. They travel only at night, and so
superstitious are the natives of their evil influence that if one of
these uncanny little creatures appears near their rice fields, the
plantation is immediately abandoned. However, these small creatures are
no larger than squirrels, and are perfectly harmless. They are very rare
even in their native lands--the Oriental Archipelago and the Philippine
Islands. They rear their young in the hollow roots of bamboo trees, and
to disturb their nests means to incur the evil of all the land.

Night animals do not go forth to travel and seek prey until the night is
far advanced, and their prey is soundly sleeping. They seem to know the
exact time of the night, as if they had watches or clocks, and they
usually go forth to hunt about midnight and return to their homes about
four o'clock. Only in cases of extreme hunger do they vary from this
rule.

How marvellously skilled are they in finding their way! They pass
through a crowded forest as though it were daytime, and strangely enough
know just how to return to their lairs. This special sense or gift is
not possessed by man; he must have marks and signs to return to a
definite place.

These night-travellers number among their lot bats, flying squirrels,
leopards, and prowling snakes.

Bats are not only the most interesting of the night-travellers, but by
far the most curious and wonderful animals in the world. They are
hideously ugly, reminding one more of a miniature, closed-up umbrella
than an animal! They are coarse, awkward, when not in flight, and
repellent; yet they have such highly developed senses that they have no
rivals in the animal world. They excel most birds in flight, are able to
make long nightly journeys, in which they use their wings not only for
flight, but as air-bags in which they catch all kinds of flying insects.
Their sense of touch as we know it is really a combination of touch,
sight, and hearing.

A bat is a paradox par excellence! Nature seems to have started to make
a little bear or fox, and suddenly forgot how and changed it into a
winged freak, with tail, claws, fur, sharp teeth, small ears that stand
up, and tiny, half-buried eyes. Its queer angular-edged wings look like
an umbrella, with the cloth stretched over steel ribs; but in the case
of the bat, this framework i