1905.] MAMMALS OF SOUTHEU:^: CAMEROOXS. 81 



when they come upon them. But some men I found in the region 

 of the Ja bohl enough to slioot darts headed with broad and sharp 

 chisel-like blades from their guns, and thus kill elephants. When 

 a native kills an elephant he secures a great prize, for a pair of 

 good- sized tusks are a small fortune to him, and the supply of 

 meat is enough for many villages. 



At a village on the Benito River I saw where the people, a 

 few months before, had constructed a strong fence at the outskirts 

 of their clearing, where a herd of elephants had been coming of 

 nights to feed. Into the enclosure thus made they had managed 

 to get the elephants, and had killed six or eight of them, shooting 

 them from behind the stockade or from stations in Iai"ge trees. 



Natives sometimes find elephants dead. These may sometimes 

 be such as have been wounded by spears of the kind described 

 above ; but I think that they are those that have died a natural 

 death. 



A Inrge elephant-skull that I once saw lying by a, path in the 

 forest had no socket? for the tusks, but only rudimentary holes 

 the size of one's finger. The people say elephants are often 

 destitute of tusks. 



The Species of Anomalurus. 



The Anomaluri, which have in Fang and Bulu the generic name 

 " iigui," are among the most strictly arboi-eal animals that exist. 

 I never saw one, or heard of one having been seen, on the ground ; 

 and I know that when one falls to the ground wounded, it is 

 helpless, and does^ not try to run away. They can ascend and 

 descend large smooth tree-trunks or the inside of hollow trees, 

 where an ordinary squirrel could not go. In such places they 

 have a humping mode of progress like that of a Geometer cater- 

 pillar, and the sharp-pointed scales on the underside of the tail 

 are pressed against the tree to aid them. They must be much 

 aided also by 'the wonderful sharpness and strong curve of their 

 claws. The claws of dead specimens were continually catching on 

 things — on other specimens, the side of the vessel, or even my 

 hand when handling them — and holding so that they were not 

 easily shaken oS". I have never seen these Flying- Squirrels on the 

 small outer branches of trees ; but they must go on the outer 

 branches, for they leap or sail through the air from one tree to 

 another. 



I have often asked the natives what these animals eat. The 

 answers showed ignorance : it was commonly said that they eat 

 fruit or nuts ; I was also told that the " aA^emba ngui " (^1. hee- 

 crofti) eats "the flesh" of trees, that is, the soft cavibkim-l&yer 

 under the bark. A greenish pulpy mass I have seen in the 

 stomachs of some specimens seemed to confirm this. 



The species just referred to is generally found in the daytime 

 clinging to the inside of large hollow trees, though sometimes, espe- 

 ciall}^ towards evening, it is seen crouching against the oiitside of 



Proo. ZooL. Soc— 1905, Vol. No. YI G 



