1917.] Lang and Chapin, Field Notes on African Chiroptera. 499 



At Medje from May 10 to early June, 1914, Lang observed them flying 

 every evening in an easterly to southeasterly direction, though in June the 

 later arrivals gathered in the trees just before nightfall. Dozens of them 

 were killed every day by the natives with arrows and nooses. 



Certain small islands in the Aruwimi near Panga are famous in that 

 region for the number of these bats that they harbor at certain seasons. 

 We were told when passing in September that they always come at low 

 water (February and March). 



At Stanleyville a few were seen again in October, 1914, and great num- 

 bers at Sierra Leone in February, 1915. 



At Leopoldville they are brought to market tied together in large 

 bunches, dead and alive. We saw this in December, and in April Rodhain 

 and Bequaert procured live individuals for their study of the dipterous 

 parasites (Nycteribiidse), with which Eidolon helvum is habitually infested. 

 The remarks of these authors on the habits of these bats in captivity 1 are 

 worthy of repetition. " We have fed these animals almost wholly on sweet 

 bananas, of which they consume considerable quantities, but which pass 

 through the digestive tube with great rapidity. These bats seem hardly 

 to assimilate anything but the directly soluble juices contained in fully 

 ripened fruit, for the substance of the fruit itself is passed out by the anus 

 practically unchanged." 



During the two and a half years we were in the Upper LTele district, 

 beyond the northeastern edge of the forest, we never observed Eidolon 

 helvum, but found Epomoyhorus anurus common at Farad je, and Epomojps 

 franqueti was still heard in the forest galleries as far north as Yakuluku. 



Schubotz found large colonies of Eidolon hehum in September on the 

 islands of Lake Kivu, but there are no records apparently of its occurrence 

 in British East Africa, though its range is usually given as extending 

 across tropical Africa from Khartum on the north to Namaqualand in the 

 south. This roussette is very gregarious and within its range the most 

 abundant of its family, but its occurrence in large numbers is decidedly 

 irregular. No observing traveller can fail to notice their immense flocks as 

 they pass by the thousands just after sunset, especially in the neighborhood 

 of open water. Their flight is then fairly rapid. In fact they can actually 

 sail with rigid wings, descending at times slightly in their direct undulating 

 progress, seldom making a low guttural sound. Those who have had an 

 opportunity to see thousands of these bats defile every evening in the same 

 direction high in the air have no doubt as to their performing a migration, 

 especially since at first none of them seem to alight. Only later they sud- 



i Bull. Soc. Zool. de France, XL, 1916, p. 250. 



