X.—On some Mammals from Tenasserim.—By W. T. BLANFORD, F. R. S.

(Received and read March 6th, 1878.)

(With Plates VI, VII, VIII.)

The mammals described in the following notes are from two collections. The first and largest was made by Mr. W. Davison for Mr. Hume, to whom I am indebted for the specimens; the second, which although smaller, comprised several very interesting forms, was collected by Mr. Limborg. The bats procured by the latter have already been described by Mr. Dobson.*

The localities, and, in almost every case, the sexes have been carefully recorded on the specimens obtained by both the naturalists named. Mr. Davison's labels in many cases contain detailed measurements taken before skinning. As will be seen, several important additions are made to the Tenasserim fauna, and the most of these are from Bánkasún in Southern Tenasserim, where some Malay forms have been obtained, which had not previously been noticed so far north.

In addition to the Tenasserim specimens, Mr. Hume has very kindly given to me a large portion of his mammalian collection, and has entrusted me with the whole for examination and description.

INSECTIVORa.

Gymnura rafflesi.

Vigors and Horsfield, Zool. Jour. III, p. 246;-Wagner, Schreber's Saugth. Supp. II, p. 46; V, p. 534.

This species was mentioned in Mr. Blyth's list of the mammals of Burma, as probably existing in Mergui, although its occurrence within British limits had not been recorded. It has since been obtained at Bánkasún in Southern Tenasserim, by Mr. Davison, to whom I am indebted for a perfect female in spirit. The anatomy of the animal is almost unknown, but I hope to induce a more competent anatomist than I am to examine the specimen.

The skins from Bánkasún vary much in the extent of white on the fore part of the body. Generally the head and neck are white with the exception of a broad black patch above each eyc and a variable amount of black bristles mixed with white on the crown. The anterior portion of the back is clad with mixed white and black bristles, the proportion varying; on the hinder back, sides, limbs and lower parts from the breast, the long hairs are generally black, but in one specimen there is a line of white bristles down the middle of the breast and belly; this line is wanting in the other two * J. A. S. B. 1877, Pt. 2, p. 312.

† J. A. S. B. 1875, Pt. 2, extra number, p. 32.

skins which I have examined. The extent of the white varies so much that it is not at all improbable that specimens wholly white or wholly black may occur. The fine woolly under fur is dusky olivaceous at the base, brown at the tips on the upper parts, ashy with brownish ends beneath. The terminal portion of the tail is compressed, and in some specimens partially or wholly white in colour, and the under surface of the tail is thinly clad throughout with scattered short bristles, about a quarter of an inch long. These bristles are wanting on the upper part of the tail, which has very much shorter scattered hairs. The small scales covering the tail are indistinctly arranged in rings, and subimbricate; on the lower surface the scales are convex and distinctly imbricate, the bristles arising from the interstices. Thus the under surface of the tail is very rough and may probably be of use to the animal in climbing.

The characters of the tail just mentioned do not appear to have been noticed in the published descriptions of Gymnura, all of which are probably copied from that by Horsfield and Vigors. Another important difference from the original account is to be found in the claws of the specimens before me not being retractile. In the original description* the retractility of the claws is mentioned, both in the Latin characters and in the English note pointing out the distinctions between Gymnura and Tupaia. It is possible that the Tenasserim animal differs from that found in Sumatra, but the distinction between retractile and non-retractile claws would in all probability be of generic importance, and it is difficult to conceive that two genera of insectivora, so closely resembling each other in their very peculiar external characters, and yet differing in so important a detail, should inhabit two regions of which the fauna is, for the most part, identical. At the same time it is possible that I am mistaken in referring the Tenasserim animal to Gymnura rafflesi.

The following are the dimensions of the female specimen in spirit

2.15

of tarsus and hind foot (claws not included), The stuffed specimen is nearly the same, except that the tail is rather longer. The dimensions given by Horsfield and Vigors for an adult are rather more ;-head and body 14.25 inches, tail 10.5, whilst the tarsus is stated to be only 2 inches long, but the difference is trifling.

Mr. Davison informs me that Gymnura is purely nocturnal in its habits, and lives under the roots of trees. It has a peculiar and most offensive smell, not musky, but rather alliaceous, resembling decomposed cooked

* Zool. Jour., III, p. 248.

vegetables. There is a slight smell in the dried skin. The contents of the stomach in the spirit specimen appear to consist entirely of remains of insects, amongst which I can, I think, detect termites, but most of the fragments are too much broken for identification.

Tupaia peguana.

Jerdon, Mam. Ind. No. 88:-Blyth Mam. Burm. No. 65.

Blyth in his Catalogue of the Mammalia in the Museum of the Asiatic Society classed the Peguan Tupaia as a variety of T. ferruginea, but in his Mammals of Burma he separated the Burmese species, as Jerdon had done. He, however, pointed out that the two are barely separable, and that a ferruginous tinge is present in some Burmese specimens.

Skins collected by Mr. Davison in Southern Tenasserim have all the posterior portion of the back distinctly ferruginous. Others from Myáwadi, west of Moulmain, are almost equally rufous on the rump, whilst other specimens again from the same neighbourhood have no rufous tinge. A specimen from Tavoy has scarcely a trace of rufescent. Without a larger series of Malaccan specimens than I have at hand, I cannot positively say that the two forms pass into each other, but I am strongly disposed to suspect that they do so.

The following dimensions taken on the animals when recently killed are recorded by Mr. Davison on his tickets.

No. 1 is from Kaukaryit on the Houngdarau river, 2 and 3 from the neighbourhood of Myáwadi, all localities to the eastward of Moulmain.

CARNIVORA.

Prionodon maculosus, Pls. VI, VII.

W. Blanf. Proc. As. Soc. Bengal, March 1878, p. 93.

P. affinis P. gracili, sed major, atque maculis fasciisque fuscis majoribus ornatus; dorso nigrescenti-fusco, lineis sex albis angustis transfasciato, fasciâ albá laterali utrinque post aurem oriente, usque ad femorem decur

rente, lateribus maculis longis fuscis superne majusculis, subtus minoribus signatis, collo sursum duobus fasciis latis subnigris longitudinalibus, inter se vittâ albâ angustá, medio fusco-lincatá, discretis, notato; caudâ annulis septem fuscis albisque alternis circumdatâ, illis fere duplo latioribus, apice albescente.

Long. a rostro ad anum 18·25, caudæ sine pilis ad apicem 16, pilorum 0·75, tota 35; cranii 3, tarsi a calcaneo 2·8 poll. angl.

Hab. in provinciâ Tenasserim, (Davison, Limborg).

Upper part brownish black broken up by greyish white bands, lower parts white, tail brownish black with 7 white rings, tip whitish. Two broad black bands run down each side of the upper part of the neck, between them is a narrow greyish white band with a faint mesial dark streak, somewhat interrupted, and passing into two bands of elongate spots between the shoulders. The two broad dark bands pass into the dark patches of the back; on each side of these bands is a white rather wavy stripe, commencing at the ear and continued along the neck, above the shoulder, and down the side to the thighs, becoming more irregular behind; below this again is a dark band somewhat broken up into spots in front, passing over the shoulder, and continued as a line of large spots along the side. The back is chiefly brownish black, crossed by six narrow transverse whitish bands, the first five equidistant, the foremost communicating with the mesial neck band, and the hinder all uniting with the white band on the side, so as to break up the dark colour into large spots. There are small black spots on the fore neck, lower portion of the sides, and outside of the limbs, the spots on the fore neck forming an imperfect gorget. The white rings on the tail are not much more than half the breadth of the dark rings; the last dark ring, near the tip, and the first white ring are narrower than the others. Nose dark brown mixed with grey, a dark ring round each orbit with a streak running back to below the ear and another passing up to the crown; forehead between and behind the eyes, and in front of the ears, and cheeks, pale grey. Ears rounded and clad with blackish hairs outside and near the margin inside, a few long pale hairs on the inner surface of the ear conch. Whiskers long, extending to behind the ears, the upper brown, the lower entirely white. Soles, except the pads, which are naked, covered with fine hair.

The fur is soft and short throughout, that on the upper parts is ashy grey at the base; lower fur very fine, tips of the longer hairs black or white; none of the hairs are more than half an inch long on the back, being much shorter than in P. pardicolor.

The following dimensions are taken on a fully adult male specimen preserved whole in spirit. The length of the body would perhaps be an inch or two more in a fresh specimen, the other dimensions are probably unaltered.