No. 9. — Bats from British East Africa. 

 By Glover M. Allen. 



During the summer of 1909, I accompanied Dr. William Lord 

 Smith and Mr. Gorham Brooks, of Boston, on a brief expedition to 

 British East Africa. From Mombasa, we reached Nairobi by rail, a 

 journey now accomplished within twenty-four hours, and here gathered 

 together an outfit for a ten weeks' march to the region north and west 

 of Mt. Kenia. From the plateau of Laikipia, we followed the course of 

 the Guaso Nyiro to the east, and at length turned southeast, following 

 up a small affluent, the Meru River, to a native town of that name, 

 whence we shortly returned south to Nairobi. 



Practically all the bats collected, were obtained in the arid plateau 

 country through which the Guaso Nyiro makes its way. Along the 

 river banks there is more or less verdure, bushes and vines, with 

 occasional large trees, and at lower levels, a scattering of ivory-nut 

 palms and other smaller species. Away from the immediate course 

 of the stream, however, there are great stretches of dry open plain, 

 more or less grass-grown, with scattered thorn trees, or large cande- 

 labra-like euphorbias of characteristic shape. This region is of 

 especial interest as marking in some degree the southward extension 

 of certain Abyssinian and Somaliland species. Thus the Grevy's 

 Zebra of Abyssinia here meets the more southern Grant's Zebra, and 

 the Beisa Oryx is found on the plains bordering this stream. It is 

 therefore of much interest that we found Petalia revoili and Eptesicus 

 minutus somalicus, species described from Somaliland, and here 

 perhaps near their southward limits as species of this arid portion of 

 northeast Africa. 



The most remarkable discovery, however, was a specimen repre- 

 senting an undescribed species of Nycticeius, a genus hitherto be- 

 lieved to be confined to the southeastern United States and Cuba. 

 I am indebted to Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, for examining this specimen and calling my attention 

 to the fact that it is in every way a typical Nycticeius. In addition 

 to this species, a pallid white-winged Eptesicus is described as new. 



