16 Mammals of Burma. 



*16. CtWOPTEEUS MARGIN ATTTS (J. 14). 

 Vespertilio marginatus, B. H. 



A common and very generally diffused species, inhabiting, it would 

 seem, everywhere that bananas grow in S.E. Asia and its islands. 



Its flight is particularly light and buoyant, and is performed by rapid 

 movement of the wings, as it hovers around a fruit-tree, being quite unlike 

 the slow winnowing motion of the wings of the larger "Flying-foxes." 

 Both, however, travel to vast distances in the course of a night's foraging.* 

 The neck and sides of this Bat are often strongly tinged with bright 

 ferruginous, which would appear to indicate full maturity, f It is an ex- 

 traordinarily voracious feeder, and will devour more than its own weight 

 at a meal, voiding its food apparently but little changed while still slowly 

 munching away. Of the guava, though a soft mellow fruit, it swallows 

 only the juice, opening and closing its jaws very leisurely in the act of 

 mastication, and rejecting the residue. A pair have now been living for 

 some time, and have reared a young one, in the London Zoological Gardens, 

 where also the larger species of this family thrive and propagate freely. A 

 species from the Andamans is described as C. Iraehysoma, Dobson. J 



Tribe SPECTEA. 

 Insectivorous Bats chiefly, which hybernate where the temperature is low. Zen-no, Mason. 



Sub-tribe Pachtetba. 



Thick-tailed Bats; the tail more or less protrusile and sheathing within the. interfemoral 

 membrane ; the wings long and narrow, and contracting with a double flexure. 



Fam. Noctilionidse. 



Thick-tailed Bats. 



17. TaPHOZOT/S THEOEALIII. 



Taphozous theobaldi, Dobson, P. A. S. B. 1872, p. 152 ; T. saccolaimus of Burma, 

 passim. 



Tenasserim provinces. 



* vide Hutton, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 693. 



t [I have observed this in adult females only, and believe it to be a secondary sexual 

 character, like the epaulets in Epomophorus, — G.E.D.] 

 % J. A. S. B. xl. p. 260. 



