EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 677 



baud across the lower portion of the back. The extremities 

 and the back are darker, with a faint indication of the dark 

 u saddle "-mark seen in the male. 



Young. The young of both sexes are said to resemble the 

 adult female. 



Von Schrenck's detailed description, on which tke foregoing is 

 mainly based, is substantially as follows : The dark-brown of 

 the head, in the male, is followed by a broad dusky yellowish- 

 gray neck-band, which on the middle line, both above and 

 below, passes forward, but on the sides has the convexity 

 pointing backward. Behind this light neck-baud is a broad, 

 loug saddle-shaped patch upon the back, which, on the middle 

 line, runs forward in a point, but which extends itself laterally 

 in two narrow bands meeting and expanding on the breast into 

 a pointed spot ; posteriorly the dark dorsal patch is also pro- 

 longed backward and laterally, but without meeting below. 

 Along the sides of this dorsal area runs a broad, curved, light, 

 soiled yellowish-gray band, with the convexity upward ; these 

 lateral light bands become deflected downward, both anteriorly 

 and posteriorly, and form, by their union, a light band along 

 the belly. Within these light bands anteriorly, on each side, 

 is a large oval dark-brown spot, in which are inserted the an- 

 terior extremities. The light ventral area encloses posteriorly 

 two small oval dark-brown spots, and in front of these a third 

 narrower and larger. Behind the dark area on the back is a 

 very broad dorsal cross-baud of light yellowish-gray, joining 

 the light bands on the side of the body. Behind this light 

 cross-band the whole posterior part of the body, as well as on 

 the tail and hind limbs, is blackish-brown. As a rule the 

 above-described dark and light color areas are very sharply 

 denned. Sometimes, however, there extends from the dark 

 areas a smaller spot more or less isolated. According to the 

 same writer the color varies considerably in different individ- 

 uals, one of those he describes having the dark color of a dark 

 grayish-black, and the light markings whitish or straw-yellow. 

 He also states that in the figures given by Siemaschko the 

 light neck-band is deflected backward from the back of the 

 neck to the fore-limbs, leaving the whole breast of the same 

 dark-brown color as the head. Besides this the dark-brown 

 color of the back extends, both posteriorly and anteriorly, to 

 the lower sides of the body, occupying the whole of the ventral 

 surface, with the exception of two light bands which run cross- 



