Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/617

Rh ; and our Mammoth Cave, with its countless grottoes, has only two bat-holes, whose occupants have never been known to change their quarters.



Nearly all the South Asiatic vegetarians treat mischievous animals with a more than Christian forbearance; but the worshipers of Brahma have, besides, been taught to regard certain species of the brute creation as half divine, and consequently altogether inviolate, and entitled to the active charity of every true believer—the most privileged of the zoölogical demi-gods being the bhunder-baboon (Papio Rhesus), the Honuman (Semnopithecus entellus), the Brahmin cow, the pigeon, and the common crocodile. In Hindostan the public spirit of wealthy philanthropists rarely rises above the orthodox conservatism of the national mind; bequests are not devoted to public improvements, but rather to the maintenance in statu quo of