n8 Mammals of Eastern Asia 
the rump are conspicuously tinted with soft pale gray. The fore- 
arms and the general area of each shoulder are dark gray mot- 
tled with brown and black. The lateral membranes are gray- 
brown and the tail membrane is light buffy gray lightly dotted 
with black. All in all, this animal, provided it keeps still, can 
be distinguished on the bark of a tree only with great difficulty. 
In nursing young the underparts are clothed with short thin 
soft fur, pale buff in color except under the chin, where the 
longer gray dorsal pelage encroaches from either side. 
The ears of Flying Lemurs are short, rounded, and almost 
naked. In life they appear pinkish. The claws of the hands and 
feet are short, strongly curved, and very sharp. The eyes are 
large, hazel-colored, and rather prominent, as befits an almost 
wholly nocturnal animal. The anus lies at the inner end of a 
deep, pouch-like depression that can be almost closed if the tail 
is curved downward. There is a single pair of mammae, one just 
behind each arm. One young one is born. 
The Flying Lemur is unable to stand erect and so slow- 
moving as to be nearly helpless on the ground. It seeks to climb 
any object encountered. A captive specimen ate fruit and drank 
milk in preference to meat and insects. It made a soft rattling 
sound like a pencil point drawn sharply across the teeth of a 
comb, and when frightened, a hissing sound. 
When in a resting position Flying Lemurs cling with their 
claws, head up, to vertical limbs or tree trunks, but quite as often 
they hang in a sloth-like attitude, with their hands and feet 
placed close together and wrapped around a branch. In that 
upside-down pose the head is tilted upward and forward to rest 
on the chest and the tail is curled inward over the abdomen. 
the lemurs, monkeys and apes 
(order primates) 
In the older natural histories it was usual to place the Pri- 
mates first among the orders of mammals, partly in conformity 
