3IO 



INSECTIVORES. 



Habits. 



The common cobego is found in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, the 

 Malay Peninsula, Tenasserim, and Siam, and is known as Galeopithecus 

 volans. It is about the size of a cat ; and its habits have been well described by 

 Mr. Wallace, who met with it in Sumatra. He observes that the cobego " is 

 sluggish in its motions, at least by day, going up a tree by shoi-t runs of a few 

 feet, and then stopping a moment as if the action was difficult. It rests during the 

 day clinging to the trunks of trees, where its olive or brown fur, mottled with 

 irregular whitish spots and blotches, resembles closely the colour of mottled bark, 



THE COBEGO (J nat. size). 



and no doubt helps to protect it. Once, in a bright twilight, I saw one of these 

 animals run up a trunk in a rather open place, and then glide obliquely through 

 tlie air to another tree, on which it alighted near its base, and immediately began 

 to ascend. I paced the distance from the one tree to the other, and found it to be 

 seventy yards ; and the amount of descent I estimated at not more than thirty-five 

 or forty feet, or less than one in five. This I think proves that the animal must 

 have some power of guiding itself through the air, otherwise in so long a distance 

 it would have little chance of alighting upon the trunk. The galeopithecus feeds 

 chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very voluminous stomach and long convoluted 

 intestines. The hair is very small ; and tlie animal po.ssesses such a remarkable 



