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Show 1905.] MAMMALS OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS. 73 especially in swampy places. One so found was discovered through the little birds twittering around it, as they do around an owl or a snake. T he H orseshoe B ats. The big Hipposideros commersoni I have sometimes seen flying about over villages at evening twilight, catching insects in the air. While doing this it makes a little squeaking sound in a very high key, that some people (natives) said they could not hear. Hipposideros cyclops is very frequently found in hollow trees, along with Idiurus and some species of Muridce. One or two species of Nycteris have been found also in hollow trees. T he V espertilionhxe. The little Bats of this family are generally found hanging 011 bushes in the daytime, or seen flying around villages at evening. Some of them seem to be partial to the plantains and bananas at the back of villages, hiding under the big leaves. Two adults and a young one (in the month of October) were caught together, entangled in a spider's web. One very little bat was found in a knot-hole in a small tree that had been cut down and carried come distance to form the post of a house ; the little bat had not been disturbed by the cutting or the carrying of the tree, and was found by boys who were peeling the bark. T he W rinkled-lipped B at. The Bat called " efefae " is a member of the genus Nyctinomus. " Bifefae " are found in the holes bored in dead tree-trunks by the Barbets called " ovol " (Heliobucco bonapartei). The bats and the birds seem to live in the holes at the same time. They are so often associated that the white eggs of the Barbets are said by the natives to hatch out Bats. Tlie large Taphozous peli wTas obtained only on one occasion, near the Benito River, and must be rare or local. T he Potamogale. Most of the specimens I have obtained of the " jes" (Potamogale velox) were caught in snares set on the banks of streams, at places were the animal's excrement was seen. It seems to have the habit of resorting always to a certain spot to void excrement. The " jes " is also occasionally killed by women when fishing out little pools in the streams. When one is discovered in the pool it is surrounded, and all the women strike at it with their cutlasses as it darts hither and thither in the water, till it is killed. One specimen (a pregnant female) was said to have been dug out ot a hole in the bank of a stream. |