524 



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



of the forehead, the males have a small invagination of the skin, through 

 the opening of which protrude a few wisps of hair. There is no eversible 

 pouch near the anus as in H. langi, and females lack even the frontal sac, 

 but have a very small bunch of short, stiffer hairs at that point. The pair 

 of vestigial mamma? in the pubic region are usually small in the females, 

 practically absent in males. 



Exact measurements are rather variable, but the usual length is about 

 3.5 inches (90 mm.), with a tail of 1.4 inches (35 mm.), and the wing-spread 

 is 11.4 inches (290 mm.). 



One cannot travel very far in the Upper Congo without making the ac- 

 quaintance of this rather sociable species. Arriving after a long march in 

 a government station, we are met and warmly welcomed by the courteous 

 chef de poste, who accompanies us at once to the house placed at our dis- 

 position, probably a cool brick structure with loosely fitting wooden blinds 

 at the windows, and plenty of open space for ventilation between the walls 

 and the gabled roof. Such a house is ideal for the region, in so far as ma- 

 terials are available, and a welcome change after weeks or months under 

 canvas and in mud-walled rest-houses. 



Perhaps it is a long time since some passing officer last occupied it. 

 The door is unlocked, and in go our boys to install our camp furniture. 

 Everything is dark, and a slight musty odor is perceptible. A number of 

 dark forms, worried by this unwonted disturbance, flit about the room. 

 But our boys are wise in the ways of bloodthirsty mammalogists. They 

 come out again, close the door cautiously and report: "There are birds in 

 the house." 'Ndeke' however means bats as well as birds, so preparations 

 are made to secure specimens, and butterfly nets pressed into service. 



Our Belgian friend meanwhile looks on with kindly amusement, and we 

 cannot help laughing at our own awkwardness and the adroitness of our 

 quarry; but the joy of success is not always complete. Nine times out of 

 ten, we have to conceal a slight disappointment, for we have only captured 

 an old friend, Hipposideros caffer. Small wonder, for this is the commonest 

 bat in abandoned native huts, old outhouses or magazines, or any other 

 darkened untenanted building, where they gather in numbers up to 50 or 

 60, hanging to the walls or ceiling, making little disturbance and flying 

 with scarcely a sound. When forced to leave they make for the nearest 

 retreat in some adjoining house; it goes without saying that they are per- 

 fectly acquainted with the neighborhood. 



Native huts, while inhabited, offer no suitable refuge, on account of 

 the great simplicity of their structure, and mainly because of the smoke 

 from the fire, which even in hot equatorial Africa is kept burning there, 

 especially at night. Small colonies may however be found in the sepulchral 



