MAMMALS 23 



In its diet the Flying Lemur is a strict vegetarian, 

 feeding chiefly on fruit, but also on leaves and shoots, 

 as I found by an examination of the stomach-contents 

 of a specimen which I shot. The incisors are pecu- 

 liar comb-like teeth, and Dr. Annandale suggests that 

 they function as a strainer through which the pulp of 

 fruit is sucked into the mouth, stones and fibrous 

 matter being rejected. I doubt if this is a sufficient 

 explanation of the function of these teeth, for Galeo- 

 pithecus is provided with a full set of molars for grind- 

 ing and munching its food, and, as I have said, it 

 feeds on leaves as well as on fruit ; if it fed purely 

 on fruit pulp a marked reduction in the molar denti- 

 tion would surely be noticeable. 



The animal has a peculiar smell, due to the secre- 

 tion of an open gland at the root of the tail, coloured 

 orange in the male. The eyes are very large, in adapt- 

 ation to nocturnal habits, and as the iris is very dark 

 the eye appears to be all pupil, like the eyes of deer; 

 the native name of Kubang Plandok for Galeopithecus 

 is indicative of this feature, for Plandok is the native 

 name for the Mouse-Deer Tragulus. These Flying 

 Lemurs are extraordinarily tenacious of life, not only 

 enduring long periods of starvation, but resisting all 

 but the most violent methods of killing ; none the less 

 they do not endure captivity well. 



Ptilocercus lowi, the Pen-tailed Shrew, was first found 

 in Borneo, and was for long regarded as peculiar 

 to that island ; it has, however, turned up recently 



a tree, holding the young one between it and the trunk, when, 

 owing to its speckled green-grey colouring, it was very difficult 

 to see. All I have opened had the stomach full of chewed-up 

 leaves, but I fed one on bananas, which it ate readily. H. N. R. 



