It was caught suspended, head
downwards, on a cluster of the fruit of the longan tree (Nephelium
longanum). Now this tree is an evergreen, and all the year round 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 leaves of the tree."[68]
Even more curious is the case of the sloths--defenceless animals which
feed upon leaves, and hang from the branches of trees with their back
downwards. Most of the species have a curious buff-coloured spot on the
back, rounded or oval in shape and often with a darker border, which
seems placed there on purpose to make them conspicuous; and this was a
great puzzle to naturalists, because the long coarse gray or greenish
hair was evidently like tree-moss and therefore protective. But an old
writer, Baron von Slack, in his _Voyage_ _to Surinam_ (1810), had
already explained the matter. He says: "The colour and even the shape of
the hair are much like withered moss, and serve to hide the animal in
the trees, but particularly when it has that orange-coloured spot
between the shoulders and lies close to the tree; it looks then exactly
like a piece of branch where the rest has been broken off, by which the
hunters are often deceived.
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