COBEGOS. 3n 



tenacity of life that it is exceedingly difficult to kill it by any ordinaiy means. 

 The tail is prehensile, and is probably made use of as an additional support while 

 feeding. The animal is said to have only a single young one at a time : and my 

 own observation confirms this statement, for I once shot a female, with a very 

 small, blind, and naked little creature clinging closely to its breast, which was 

 quite bare and much wrinkled, reminding me of the young of the Marsupials, to 

 which it seemed to form a transition. On the back, and extending over the liuibs 

 and membrane, the fur of these animals is short but exquisitely soft, resembling in 

 its texture that of the chinchilla." 



A very similar account is given of this species in Java by a much earlier 

 writer, Hor.sfield, who states that, in addition to leaves, it feeds on the fruits of 

 several trees when in an unripe condition, among these being young cocoanuts. 

 In Java it is said to be " confined to particular districts, where it is met with 

 chiefly on isolated hills, covered with a fertile soil, and abounding with young 

 luxuriant trees, the branches of which afibrd it a safe concealment during the 

 day. As the evening approaches, it leaves its retreat, and is seen in considerable 

 numbers making oblique leaps from one tree to another ; it also discovers itself by 

 a croaking, hai-sh, disagreeable noise." 



Phiiippme Of the .slightly smaller Pliilippine cobego (G. jihilipjnnrit.sis), 



cohego. restricted to the islands from which it takes its name, we have a 

 short account by Professor Moseley in his Naturalist on the Challenger. This 

 observer relates how, when on Basilan Island — one of the Philippines — he was 

 conducted by a native guide to a particular spot, for the purpose of shooting 

 .specimens of this animal. Here "some few trees were standing isolated, not 

 having been as yet felled on the clearing. On one of these, after much search, a 

 kaguan was seen hanging to the shady side of a tall trunk. It was an object very 

 easily seen, much more so than I expected. It moved up the tree with a shambling, 

 jerky gait, hitching itself up apparently b}^ 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 forty yards distant from any 

 other, and nnist have flown tliat length to reach it. I understood from my guide 

 that numbers of these animals were caught when trees were cut down in clearing. 

 They are especially abundant at the Island of Bojol, north of Mindanao; their 

 skins were sold at Zebu, wliieh lies near, at five dollars a dozen." 



In their leaf-eating habits the cobegos stand apart from all other In.sectivores, 

 in this respect occuppng the same relationship to the typical members of the order 

 as is presented by the fruit-bats to the tj'pical bats. Instead of possessing the power 

 of true flight, characteristic of the bats, the cobego merely enjoys spunous flight, or the 

 power of continuing the extension of an ordinary leap by the aid of its paiachute. 



It would require but comparati^•eIy little further modification to alter a 

 cobego into a creature much resembling a bat, and endowed with the power of 

 true flight : and we thus gain a good idea of the way in which the bats may have 

 probably been derived from the Insectivore.s. It must not, however, be thereby 

 supposed that the cobego is in any sense the missing link between these orders ; 

 its leaf-eating habits, as well as the peculiar structure of its inci-sor teeth, being 

 alone amply sufficient to di.sprove its claim to that position : — the insect-eating 



