1917.] 



Lang and Chapin, Field Notes on African Chiroptera. 



517 



abrupt mountain chain. Quite the contrary, for it is only a rolling bush 

 country, some 2800 feet above sea level, studded however with great num- 

 bers of rugged granite hills rising from 300 to 500 feet higher. As one 

 follows the road from Aba to Yei, the point at which one leaves the Belgian 

 Congo and enters the Lado would be scarcely noticeable were it not marked 

 to the left by one of these hills known as the Libugu, literally "the rock," 

 a well-chosen name for this great gray monolith, exceptionally bare and 

 some 200 feet high. 



Just as these hills are inhabited by a number of birds not found in the 

 more level country to the southwest, so too they have certain peculiar 

 mammals, notably hyraxes; and their fissures and grottos harbor, as one 

 might well guess, numbers of bats. Extensive caverns we never saw; in 

 igneous rocks one would not expect them; but in our climbs about these 

 heights and cliffs we often set dark forms fluttering in the recesses, where 

 however they were difficult to secure with the gun. The natives were 

 naturally far better acquainted with the neighborhood and long practised 

 in the art of bat-catching. We were aided particularly by the people of 

 chief Ibu, a Logo; they knew the caves well, and when colonies of bats had 

 been located they were smoked and stifled or beaten down as they tried to 

 escape through the smaller openings. Near Aba eight species of Chiroptera 

 were taken thus in the hills, several others being collected in other refuges, 

 such as houses and banana plants. Here, as with the bats inhabiting 

 hollow trees, it was found that colonies of the more abundant kinds were 

 composed mainly of a single species, although some of the rarer ones (e. g., 

 Rhinolophus axillaris) may mingle with their commoner fellows. 



The close resemblance of Coleura gallarum nilosa to Taphozous Sudani is 

 not restricted to external appearance, for both bats have the same habits 

 and frequent similar sites. At Aba the smaller species lives in the caves, 

 clambering about on their weathered gray walls, where its coloration is 

 decidedly protective. Here it is very likely near the southwestern border 

 of its range, for the species inhabits Northeast Africa; and this race, dis- 

 tinguished by the light bases of its hair, was described from the Nile region. 



Nycterid^e. 

 13. Nycteris hispida (Schrebcr). 



All the members of this genus found in the Congo are clothed in long 

 soft fur of a brown or gray-brown color. They are very easily recognized 

 on account of their large ears, minute eyes, the deep frontal groove hidden 

 by the nose-leaves, and the long tail, which composes about one half of the 



