chap, viii.] THE FLYING LEMUR. 211 



twilight, I saw one of these animals run up a trunk in 

 a rather open place, and then glide obliquely through the 

 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 ; 

 arid 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 dis- 

 tance it would have little chance of alighting exactly upon 

 the trunk. Like the discus of the Moluccas, the Galeo- 

 pithecus feeds chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very 

 voluminous stomach and long convoluted intestines. The 

 brain is very small, and the animal possesses such remark- 

 able tenacity of life, that it is exceedingly difficult to kill 

 it by any ordinary means. Tire tail is prehensile, and is 

 probably made use of as an additional support while feed- 

 ing. It 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 Marsupials, to which it seemed to form a transition. 

 On the back, and extending over the limbs and membrane, 

 the fur of these animals is short, but exquisitely soft, 

 resembling in its texture that of the Chinchilla. 



P2 



