72 MR. G. L. BATES ON THE [Feb. 7, 



have been sent to me I have not learned to distinguish with 

 certainty ; in the little I have to say about them I must mention 

 them together. 



They are found in the daytime curled up asleep in the trees, 

 tightly clinging to a branch. So tight is their grip of the branch 

 that specimens have sometimes come to me mutilated in the 

 hands, the natives who captured them declaring that it was only 

 by cutting the fingers that they could loosen the animal's hold. 



Pottos are sometimes caught in traps placed on a horizontal 

 pole or bridge crossing an open space between two pieces of forest, 

 such as a narrow place in a garden clearing or a stream. The 

 animal ci-osses on the pole in preference to descending to the 

 ground. One specimen was killed at night on the roof of a 

 house, to which it seemed to have wandered from the overhanging 

 plantain-tops. 



A suckling female was caught in January, along with a half- 

 grown young one. 



The single specimen of Arctocehus aureus that I sent to the 

 museum is the only one of this animal I have ever seen. I 

 found it in a village on the Benito River, where it had just been 

 killed by a native, who did not know what to call it. However, I 

 have sometimes heard from natives of a rare beast like the Potto, 

 which must be the same. 



The Fruit-eating Bats. 



The commonest species of Epomophorus (? E. franqueti), called 

 " endem," probably makes more noise at night than any other 

 creature of this country. Their monotonous croaking racket may 

 be heard in the bush-growth about villages any night — at least if 

 any of the wild trees growing in such places are in fruit. They 

 were especially abundant about my house when an " Udika " tree 

 near by was bearing. Their noise, consisting of a sort of croaking 

 bark repeated many times in a monotone, was generally heard 

 coming from a thicket where the bat seemed to be hanging. But 

 sometimes, at dead of night, the sound was heard passing over- 

 head, from a bat flying. Whenever a bunch of ripe bananas was 

 hanging on my porch, it was visited by the bats at night. When 

 the bananas got very soft, the bats would eat several of them in a 

 night and bite many more. They took their bites on the wing 

 while flying to and fro. 



Boys would sometimes find these bats hanging on bushes in the 

 daytime. On the last day of August and the first of September 

 two females were biought to me, each with a half-grown young 

 one, which had been found clinging to the mother. 



The big Hypsignathus monstrosus was very abundant in the 

 mangroves and palms along the banks of the Benito River, where 

 it made a noise like that of the " bindem," but still louder. 

 In the Bulu country, where there are no large stieams, they are 

 not common, but are sometimes found hanging in the forest, 



