CLASSIFICATION OF THE BANDICOOTS. 749 



Hardwicke (I.e.) professedly substituted " giganteus" for malabari- 

 cus, Shaw, as a more suitable name, because he had found a large 

 Bandicoot a long way from Malabar. This, of course, is inadmissible. 

 Fortunately he at the same time published a description and figure, 

 and these, with a type specimen collected by himself and now in the 

 Natural History Museum Collection, prove quite conclusively that 

 Hardwicke's was a larger and quite distinct form from malabaricus. 



Fur rather harsh, 25 mm. long on the back ; a large admixture of 

 longer hairs, varying from 40 mm. on the sides to 100 mm. on the 

 back. General colour above greyish-white, suffused with dark brown ; 

 under surface greyish. Hairs of underfur pale " drab-grey " with 

 white tips, longer hairs " seal-brown." Hands and feet wood-brown. 

 Tail sparsely clothed with very short hairs, dark, very often, if not 

 always, with a short white tip. 



Dimensions of an old male from Rajputana : — 



Head and body 360 mm. ; tail 300 ; hind foot 62*5 ; ear 15. 



Skull ; greatest length 69 ; basilar length 61*5 ; zygomatic breadth 

 36*3; nasals 28 ; diastema 21 ; length of upper molar series 12. 



Hardwicke quotes for his type, an old female : — 



Head and body 331 mm. ; tail 325 ; hind foot of type measured on 

 the dry specimen is 60 mm. 



Habitat. — The type locality is Hurdwar. 



Hardwicke, confusing it as he did with the Malabar form, gave no 

 definite habitat for gigantea. The Natural History Museum, besides 

 Hardwicke's specimens, which were probably from Hurdwar, has 

 specimens from Rajputana and Delhi, which must, for the present at 

 any rate, be allotted to this species. Whether it goes further north 

 and how far south it ranges must remain doubtful until more material 

 is available. 



(2) Bandicota malabarica, Shaw. 

 1801. Mus malabaricus, Shaw, Gen. Zool., p. 54. 

 1839. Mus (Neotoma) giganteus, Elliot, Madr. Journ. L. & S.,p. 209. 



Shaw thought he was dealing with Pennant's Perchal and 

 Bandicote Rats, but, as his name shows, he had West Coast specimens 

 to deal with. I have no actual topotypes to guide me, but some 

 specimens from Travancore show a marked difference from those I 

 have identified as B. indica, especially in skull-characters. It is 

 markedly larger. I quote with some hesitation the dimensions 



