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



the wings are darker than the ears. When it is compared with similar 

 specimens of Myotis bocagii cupreolus the difference in size is greater than 

 between the latter and the largest race, M. bocagii hildegardece. 



This bat with its cinnamon upper side attracted our attention as it was 

 being carried across the courtyard by a chicken, which had evidently found 

 it dead in the garden. Fortunately it was still in good condition. 



29. Myotis bocagii cupreolus Thomas. 



Its gorgeous color together with its small size place it among the really 

 beautiful bats. The vinaceous-rufous and ferruginous tints of the upper 

 side bordered by the blackish wing membranes and fusing into the pinkish 

 cinnamon of the under side make a pleasing combination of colors. The 

 obtuse muzzle and the tiny eyes are practically hidden in the fur of the head, 

 from which emerge laterally the rather long ears, slightly rounded at their 

 tip and concave on their posterior edge with a narrow tragus reaching to 

 their middle. Its total length is but 3.4 inches (87 mm.) and the expanse 

 of the wings 10 inches (255 mm.). According to the contents of the stomach, 

 this species feeds on minute insects of great variety, including remains of 

 Orthoptera. Only one young is brought forth, as two records tend to prove, 

 the first from the beginning of January, a large embryo, and the second 

 from the end of June, a very young male still hairless on the under side but 

 already showing on the upper side the rufous coloration of the adults. 



With regard to its habits it may be introduced as a close associate 

 of that other more common vespertilionid, Pipisirellus nanus (p. 441). 

 Indeed the Mabudu at Bafwabaka, who are well acquainted with them, 

 often catch both species, as they drive them out of the same bunch of 

 bananas; and they call this coppery banana bat the "big red brother" of 

 the dark pipistrelle. Among their own tribe they have a few people con- 

 siderably paler than the black majority, and to avoid all doubt as to the 

 interrelationship of the bats they point to such light-brown individuals 

 among themselves. Then they feel happy that they can offer such convinc- 

 ing proof to the white man, "whose brothers are always white." 



Our series of skins shows that adult males of Myotis bocagii cupreolus 

 are of a distinctly brighter vinaceous-rufous color than females and young, 

 especially on the lower back, whereas in Myotis bocagii hildegardece, which is 

 paler, both sexes attain the same intensity in the rufous hues. 



It is perhaps interesting to note that in referring to Myoiis bocagii and 

 in describing M. bocagii cupreolus and M. bocagii hildegardece, Thomas 1 



i Thomas, O. Ann. and Mag. Nat, Hist. (7), XIII, 1904, p. 407; p. 209. 



