Mammals from Lake Ngami, fyc, 391 



sufficiently high in the Botletle for water to run back along 

 this channel ; but the lake never fills to anything like its 

 former level now. 



" The whole Kalahari and Ngamiland is a vast undulating 

 grassy plain covered almost all over with dense kameel- 

 thorn forest or lower scrubby 'hock dorn ' bush, with a few 

 stretches of open grass-country, chiefly in the neighbourhood 

 of the W. of Mafeking. This dry 'bush veldt' extends 

 right up to and around the edges of the Okovango marshes, 

 and the soil is everywhere very sandy. In Ngamiland the 

 vegetation is less thorny, and many large-leafed semitropical 

 trees appear. Palm-trees grow luxuriantly throughout the 

 marshes, which are studded with numerous large and beautiful 

 islands, which are quite as tropical in appearance as anything 

 in Uganda or the Congo. N. and N.E. of the Okovango 

 marshes there are large tracts of dry inopani forest, which 

 extend, 1 believe, up to the Zambesi. 



"A most noticeable feature of the Kalahari is the great 

 number of shallow and perfectly flat pans, usually covered 

 when dry with a deposit of salt and nitrate of soda ; and 

 although these pans are dry during the greater part of the 

 year, sometimes for several years, animal life of all kinds is 

 generally more abundant in their neighbourhood." 



1. Galago moholi, Smith. 



cJ. 51,57; ? . 5Q. Lake Ngami. 



" These little lemurs were quite common in Ngamiland 

 and along the Botletle River where there was any dense vege- 

 tation and large-leafed tropical trees. They do not appear 

 until a few minutes after sunset/' 



2. Petalia thebaica, Geoff. 

 cJ . Lake Ngami. 



3. Vtspertilio capensis, Smith. 



S . 29. Okwa, Kalahari. 



<$ (preserved in spirit). Lehutitung, Kalahari. 



" This bat was seen at all the water-holes in the Kalahari. 

 They were flying up and down the large spruit at Okwa in 

 the evenings in hundreds hawking insects." 



4. Ptjnstrellus nanus, Pet. 

 S . 55. Lake Ngami. 



