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Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXXVII, 



total length. Its tip is curiously bifid, Y-shaped, serving as a support for 

 the edge of the interfemoral membrane. Both wing and tail membranes 

 are traversed by numerous fine lines; on the inner part of the wing these 

 intersect at right angles, and have little dark spots — sensory organs no 

 doubt — at their crossings. 



Externally the various species differ but slightly in color and size, and 

 in the length of the ears. Of the species enumerated in the present paper, 

 Nycteris arge and N. avakubia have the longest ears, N. pallida the shortest. 



Nycteris hispida, whose ears exceed only slightly those of the last-named 

 species, is very common in the forested region of the Ituri and about Stanley- 

 ville. There it is one of the bats most often seen flying about the villages, 

 and one of those to enter most frequently lighted rooms at night. The 

 pursuit of small insects drawn to the lamp is then its real aim. Along with 

 it may come Nycteris arge and Hipposideros caffer centralis. Sometimes we 

 would close all the windows and try to catch them with butterfly nets — 

 a warm but exhilarating sport. Now thoroughly frightened, they flew 

 round and round the room, close to the ceiling, dodging our strokes with 

 incredible agility, and hanging up from time to time in distant corners. 

 Or down they fluttered repeatedly to the doors or windows by which they 

 had entered, seeking a way out. Seldom could we net them until they were 

 completely tired out, and not infrequently they eluded us entirely. 



During the day Nycteris hispida sleeps suspended by its feet from a 

 rafter in some dark, unused room, where seldom more than three or four 

 gather, or swinging from a twig in a mango or other shady tree, a most 

 grotesque little creature with twitching ears, but attracting no attention 

 because of its small size. One foetus was found in the uterus of a female at 

 Stanleyville on August 8. 



At Boma bats of this species were not seen in the houses, but fed about 

 the papyrus in the evening just as N. pallida does in the Upper Uele. The 

 type locality is Senegal, but Dobson records specimens from Khartum to 

 the Cape of Good Hope. 



14. Nycteris pallida sp. nov. 



The smallest and the palest of our species of Nycteris, only 3.75 inches 

 (95 mm.) long, was discovered in the papyrus swamps about Faradje and 

 Vankerckhovenville. In this open country of grass and bush, the hollows 

 are very often occupied by long winding marshes filled with this noble sedge, 

 which offer refuge to a fauna quite their own. As the darkness is falling 

 rapidly, flocks of weavers drop in to roost, the slaty-black crakes (Limno- 



