Chap, xvi.] FLYING SQUIRRELS AND LIZARDS. 35 1 



the shady side of the tall trunk. It was an object very easily 

 seen, much more so than I had expected. It moved up the 

 tree with a shambling, jerky gait, hitching itself up apparently 

 by a series of short springs. It did not seem disposed to take 

 a flying leap, so I shot it. It was a female with a young one 

 clinging to the breast. It was in a tree at least 40 yards 

 distant from any other, and must have flown that length to 

 reach it. I understood from my guide that numbers of the 

 animals were caught when trees were cut down in clearing. 

 They are especially abundant at the island of Bojol, north of 

 Mindanao, and their skins were sold at Cebu, which lies near, 

 at four dollars a dozen. 



Close by on some lower trees were several Flying Lizards 

 {Draco vohifis), which similarly have a flying membrane, but in 

 their case supported on extensions of the ribs. I saw the little 

 lizards spring several times from tree to tree and branch to 

 branch ; but they pass through the air so quickly that the 

 extension of their parachute is hardly noticed during the 

 flight. We had several of them alive on board the ship for 

 a day or two, where they flew from one leg of the table to 

 another. It was curious to see two animals so widely different 

 in structure, yet provided with so similar means of flight, thus 

 occurring together in the same grove and even on the same 

 tree. 



At Malanipa Island, a very small island, not far from Zam- 

 boanga, natives had felled a good many large trees to make 

 canoes. The suitable trees are usually at some distance from 

 the water. A straight broad road is cut through the smaller 

 wood direct from the large tree to the sea-shore ; and the 

 smaller trees are felled so as to fall across the road. On their 

 prostrate trunks the canoe is hauled to the shore. The open 

 avenues were extremely useful in affording an easy road into 

 the forest for collecting purposes. 



Cebu Island, January 18th to 24th, 1875.— The ship was 

 anchored for some days in the harbour of the town of Cebu, in 

 the island of the same name. The special interest of this place 

 lay in its being the locality from which the well-known 

 delicately beautiful silicious sponge, called Venus's Flower 

 Basket {Eiiplectella aspergillum), was first obtained. The 

 sponge is dredged up from a depth of about 100 fathoms in 

 the channel between Cebu and the small island of Mactan. 



The fishermen use, to procure the sponge, a light framework, 

 made of split bamboo, with two long straight strips, about eight 

 feet in length, forming its front, and meeting at a wide angle to 

 form a point which is dragged first in using the machine. The 

 long straight strips have fish-hooks bound to them at intervals 



