EAST AFKICAN MAMMALS IN NATIONAL MUSEUM. 77 



name /roTJs to the small West African race. In that case Laviafrons 

 affi7ii^ might become synonymous with Lavia. frons frons . 



LAVU FRONS REX Miller. 



Plate 10, figs. 9, 10. 



1892. Meyuderim frons Tkue, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 15, p. 469. Oct. 26. 

 (Taveta." Not of Geofh-oy.) 



1905. Lavia rex Miller, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wa.sliington, vol. 18, p. 227. Dec. 9. 

 (Taveta, British East Africa; type in U. S. Nat. Mus.) 



1907. Lavia frons from Andersen and Wrouohton, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 

 ser. 7, vol. 19, p. 138. February. (Part; not of Geo&oy.) 



1910. Lavia from Roosevelt, African Game Trails, Amer. ed., pp. 474, 480, 

 and 487 (part) ; London ed., pp. 486, 492, and 498 (part). (Not of Geoff- 

 rey.) 



Specimens. — Thirty-seven, from the following localities: 



British East Africa: Athi Station, 1 in alcohol (Loring); 

 Kisumu, 6 (Heller); Machakos Road, 1 (Medlicott); Southern Guaso 

 Nyiro, 21, including 9 in alcohol (Loring, Meams, Heller); Taveta, 

 2, including 1, the type, in alcohol (Abbott); Telek River, Sotik, 3 

 (Heller); Ulukenia Hills, 3 in alcohol (Loring). 



This subspecies differs from Laviafrons qffinis of the upper Nile 

 and Abyssinia in its generally more robust size. The forearm and 

 ear average longer and the skull is conspicuously larger. Speci- 

 mens from the vicinity of Victoria Nyanza and north to Lado are 

 clearly intermediate between the two subspecies, but the small 

 size of skull makes them go best with afinis. The length of the fore- 

 arm seems to be the least reliable character to distinguish the races, 

 and the size of skull and teeth the most satisfactory. 



Heller and Loring, in the Appendix to Roosevelt's African Game 

 Trails, have the following notes on the yellow-winged bat: 



Almost diurnal, flies well by day; hangs from the thorn-tree branches in the sun- 

 light, and flies as soon as it sees a man approacliing. One young, which remains 

 attached to the mother until it is more tlian half her size. ( Heller.) 



These large semidiiu-nal bats lived in the thorn-tree groves and thick bush along the 

 Athi, South Guaso Nyero, and Nile Rivers, where we found them more or less common, 

 and at the latter place abundant. At the first two named places they were almost 

 always found in pairs hanging from the thorn trees by their feet, theu- wings folded 

 before their faces. When disturbed they fly a short distance and alight, but when we 

 returned to the spot a few minutes later they would often be found in the same tree 

 from which they had been started. On the Nile,at Rhino Camp, and in suitable 

 places all along the trail betv/een Kampala and Butiaba, it was not unusual to find 

 three and iom in a single thorn tree. On dark days, and once in the bright sunlight, I 

 saw these bats flying about and feeding. At evening they always appeared an hour or 

 80 before the sun went down. Their method oi feeding was quite similar to that of oiir 

 fly-catching birds. They would dart from the branches of a thorn tree, catch an 

 insect, then return and hang head downward in the tree while they ate the morsel. 

 One was captured with a young one clinging to it head downward, its feet clasped 

 about its mother's neck. (Loring.) 



