1917.] 



Lang and Chapin, Field Notes on African Chiroptera. 



525 



huts left in the midst of villages of the forest negroes. It is only natural 

 that a bat roosting so often in houses should not hesitate to enter them at 

 night; and so, among the bats we captured in lighted rooms where they had 

 come in pursuit of insects, Hipposideros caffer centralis was the most com- 

 mon. Only at Aba did we find it in caves, and even there we took but 3 

 specimens. 



The range of this subspecies extends in a belt across Equatorial Africa 

 from British East Africa to the Lower Congo, while other races of Hipposi- 

 deros caffer occupy the remainder of tropical Africa. 



23. Hipposideros caffer niapu subsp. nov. 



The 10 specimens upon which this new subspecies is based were taken 

 in a large shed at Niapu, where a flock of about 50 were making their home. 

 They did not differ in habits from H. c. centralis. 



The frontal sacs are better developed in the males then in H. c. centralis, 

 and the same is true of the abdominal mammse of the females. The fore- 

 arm is longer, the wings spreading 12.7 inches (323 mm.), while the length 

 is about 3.5 inches (88 mm.), with a tail of 1.2 inches (30 mm.). 



24. Hipposideros abse sp. nov. 



The texture and often the color of the fur is rather like that of the species 

 of Rhinolophus which frequent the same haunts. Individuals are numerous 

 which show an ochraceous-tawny color, brightest below, for the fur of the 

 back is tipped with dark brown. These dark tips always persist, but 

 the rest of the hair is more often of a pale smoke-gray. The broad wings 

 are brownish black, with an expanse of 12.6 inches (320 mm.); the length 

 from nose to tip of tail is 4 inches (102 mm.), the tail 1.4 inches (36 mm.). 



Males have a frontal sac enclosing dark stiff hairs ; females have a bunch 

 of hairs without the sac. 



This is perhaps the commonest of the cave bats about Aba, and lives in 

 flocks of hundreds in the darker recesses, taking wing when disturbed, but 

 very averse to risking itself out in the open sunlight. 



25. Hipposideros nanus sp. nov. 



A very small species, as shown by its measurements: total length, 2.6 

 inches (66 mm.); tail, 1 inch (25 mm.); expanse of wings, 9.7 inches (246 

 mm.). It bears some resemblance to H. caffer, but the fur extends higher 



