rsiAP. viii.] 



THE rCYIKG LEMUR. 



135 



is probably confined to a limited region in the nortli-west — 

 a part of the island entirtily in the bands of native mlers. 

 The other great Mammalia of Snmatra, the elephant and 

 the rbiuoceroSj are more widely distributed ; but the fonntT 

 is much more scarce than it was ft few years ai^Oj and 

 seems to retire rapidly before the spread of cultivation. 

 About I/)bo Ilaman tasks and bones are occasionally fuuud 

 in the fortist, but the living animal is now never seen. 

 The rhinoceros (Rhinoceros suraatranas) still abounds, and 

 I continually saw its tracks and its dung, and once dis- 

 turbed one feeding, which went crashing away through the 

 jurfgle, only permitting me a momentary glimpse of it 

 through the dense undenvood 1 obtained a tolerably 

 perfect cranium, and a number of teeth, which were picked 

 up by the natives. 



Another curious animal, which I liad met with in Singa- 

 pore and in Borneo, but which was more abundant here, is 

 the Galo(>pitliecuB, or Hying lemur. Tliis creature has a 

 broad niendirauR extending all roond its body to the 

 extremities of the lues, aod to the point of the rather long 

 tail This enables it to pass obliquely through the air 

 from one tree to another. It is sluggish in its motions, at 

 least by day, going up a tree by short runs of a few feet, 

 and then stopping a moment as if the action was dilticult. 

 It rests during the day clinging to the trunks of trees, wliere 

 its olive or brown fur, mottled with irregular whitish spots 

 and blotches, resembles closely the colour of mottled bark, 

 and no doubt helps to protect it. Once, in a bright 

 twilight, I saw one of these animals run up a trujjk in 

 a mther open place, and then glide obliquely through the 

 air to another tree, on which it alighted near its base, and 

 inuuediately began to ascend. I paced the distance from 

 the one tree to the other, and found it to be seventy yards ; 

 and the amount of descent 1 estimated at not moiB than 

 thirty-five or forty feet, or less than one in five. This I 

 think proves that the animal must hdve some power of 

 guiding itself through the air, otherwise in so long a dis- 

 tance it would have little chauce of alighting exactly upon 

 the trunk. Like the < "nseus of the Jloluccas, the Galeo- 

 pithecus fee<ls cliiefly on hnives, and possesses a very 

 voluminous stomach und lon^^ convoluted intestines. The 



