132 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History [Vol. LXXII 



Voice. — The animal, when disturbed, as described above, would make a short, 

 abrupt, pig-like grunting noise. It continually ground its teeth (seemingly the 

 molariform series) producing a loud noise by these movements. When taken by the 

 neck it would make a soft whistling noise, rapidly repeated. 



The tree hyraxes in the forest cry or rather howl for ten minutes or even half an 

 hour with practically no interruption, repeating one long-drawn howl 1 after another. 

 Sometimes, however, one howls as rapidly and as strongly as though it would defy 

 all competition. One would rather attribute the call to a cat-like animal on account 

 of its peculiar sound. The animals start about 9 : 00 p. m. and cry particularly about 

 10:00 p. m., though they may be heard even as late as 2:00 a. m. 



These night calls of the tree hyrax may be heard a half an hour's journey 

 through the forest. No more than a single animal was heard calling in the same 

 place. Apparently only males howl, as for a long time only males were brought in, 

 and in the total collection the males are more abundant. 



The calls were heard in many places, the first time in Batama, September 15, 

 1909. 



Food and Feeding. — The pygmies and other natives at Ngayu claim that the 

 tree hyrax descends the trees at night and feeds on the ground. The stomachs of 

 three hyraxes taken at Gamangui contained chewed up leaves, all of the same 

 species of trees. One of these stomachs also contained three bees in a ball of hair, 

 all practically intact. 



Native Capture. — The tree hyrax, although common all over the forest, is 

 difficult to procure, as it does not start howling until after night-fall, and then the 

 natives are afraid to wander about in the forest on account of leopards. 



These hyraxes keep to the same place with great persistence, as they are nearly 

 always heard in the same direction. The natives even claim that one keeps to the 

 same tree for a certain time, which seems probable, as one was heard howling every 

 night for about six days in at least the same clump of trees. 



The natives secure the hyraxes by locating the tree upon which the animal 

 is howling. In the morning they climb the tree and search for it, cut down the tree 

 in order to secure the animal, or watch the animal closely until they find some op- 

 portunity to capture it. One specimen was taken from a dead hollow tree. 



Heterohyrax chapini (Hatt) 

 Plate XXII; Text Figure 2 



Procavia chapini Hatt, 1933, Amer. Mus. Novitates, No. 594, p. 1. Type 

 locality: "Loadi Hill, 5 klm. SW. of Matadi, Bas Congo." 



Heterohyrax syriacus bocagei Hahn, 1934 (part), Zeitschr. fur Saugetierkunde, 

 Bd. IX, p. 283. 



A pale drab, coarse-haired bush hyrax with a well-marked light yellow dorsal 

 spot. The mammary formula is 0-2=4. The cranial characters are those of the 

 heterohyraxes except that the skull is larger, the muzzle longer, the dorsal profile 

 flatter and the basisphenoid more elevated than in H. syriacus and its subspecies. 



Represented by two females, one adult, one juvenile and two em- 

 bryos from the adult. These were collected by James P. Chapin near 



3 Dr. Chapin (field notes) describes their cries as "agonized reiterated screeching." 



