Note on a Living Speciinen of Galeopithecus volans. 445 



lower jaw, which bite against a leathery pad in the upper. 

 It afterwards devoured several other bananas and pieces of 

 green cocoa-nut in the same manner. Though it made no 

 attempt to drink from a vessel placed beside it, it preferred 

 its food to be moistened. It did not use its feet in eating. 



The chief natural food of Galeopithecus probably consists 

 of the leaves of trees, which contain coarse and indigestible 

 fibres ; but the Malays and Siamese agree in accusing it of 

 robbing their orchards, and in saying that it is especially 

 fond of the fruit of the Langsat {Lansium domesticum). 

 Insects certainly do not form the bulk of its food. Now, 

 the semi-cultivated fruits grown by the Malays and Siamese 

 are notorious for the number or size of the seeds which they 

 contain, and in many cases, such as that of the Langsat, 

 for the difficulty with which the edible pulp is fully 

 separated from the inedible residue. My suggestion is that 

 the pectinate teeth of Galeopithecus function very much in 

 the same manner, though for a diametrically opposite pur- 

 pose, as the baleen of the whales ; that they act as a strainer 

 by means of which fibres and seeds are prevented from 

 entering the alimentary canal of an animal whose nearest 

 relatives are adapted for an insectivorous diet. I did not 

 see my specimen using its teeth for combing its hair, or for 

 any other purpose. 



Galeopithecus is rare in the Siamese Malay States, but 

 common farther south in the Malay Peninsula. Its Siamese 

 name, ''bong" or "hang," is evidently a shortened form of the 

 Malay "kubong" — a term which includes not only Galeo- 

 pithecus but also the flying-squirrel, Sciuropterus, the tree- 

 shrew, Tupaia, and even (probably through ignorance in those 

 who use it) the lizard Draco volans. But Cantor states that 

 the last is called "kubin." 



