While in the interior of Mindanao, one of the largest islands in the Phil¬ 
ippine group, I was once somewhat startled to see a large bird, as I then 
thought, fly over me. It lit on a tree near by and I stopped to study it. To* 
my great surprise I saw an animal fully two feet long and weighing about 
twenty pounds seated on a limb of the tree. I shot it and found that it was 
a female cobego. It had two' of its young clinging to its breast when it fell. 
An investigation showed me that the animal has a parachute formed by 
folds of skin, by means of which it can leap fifty or sixty yards. While not 
possessing the power of true flight, like a bat, its leaps exceed those of the 
flying squirrel. Its integument is so elastic that extended the cobego covers 
fully a square yard of area, and the long tail is of great service in sustaining 
its flight. 
The common cobego is found in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, the Malay 
Peninsula, Tenasserim, and Siam. 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 difficult. It rests during the day clinging to the trunks 
of trees, where its olive or brown fur, mottled with irregular whitish spots 
and blotches, resembles closely the color of mottled bark, and no> doubt 
helps to protect it. Once, in a bright twilight, I saw one of these animals 
run up a trunk in a rather open place, and then glide obliquely through the 
air to 1 another tree, on which it alighted near its base, and immediately began 
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