462 Mr. E. Blyth's Notices of various Mammalia, 



" bashful or shame-faced cat/' a name which I have also heard 

 applied to it. The unobtrusive, nocturnal habits of this animal 

 would however always cause it to be little observed. I believe 

 that it is " the little Bradijpus '' of Dr. Heifer's ' Note on the 

 Animal Productions of the Tenasserim Provinces/ being com- 

 monly designated "Sloth'' by Europeans; and the territories 

 eastward of the bay constitute, I suspect, its chief habitat. A 

 pair of the Stenops gi^acilis were offered to me in the Madras 

 bazar at the low price of a rupee ; but I have seen no notice of 

 this species as an ascertained inhabitant of the peninsula*. 

 Here in Calcutta, a dealer would ask at least ten rupees for a 

 pair either of them or of the Nycticebus, and in all probability 

 double as muchf. They are, indeed, but seldom brought for 

 sale in this emporium ; and it is probable that the Nycticebus, 

 if found at all in Bengal, occurs sparingly only a little within 

 the confines of the province* 



Vesper tilionidce. — The only bat contained among Dr. Heifer's 

 Tenasserim specimens was Pteropus javanicus, which, with Nyc- 

 ticebus Temminckiij he stated to be " amongst the rarer species 

 found in the provinces"; and he alludes vaguely to other species 

 of PteropuSj Phyllostomus (meaning probably Megadermd), and 

 Nyctinomus (or Dysopes). The Society has received Pt. medius 

 (vel Edwardsii, Desm., apud Ogilby and others, though Ed- 

 wards's specimen was from the Mauritius, and should therefore, 

 I suspect, be the Pt. edulisX,) from Arracan, Tipperah, and 

 Assam, where I cannot help considering the Pt. assamensis de- 

 scribed by Messrs. McClelland and Horsfield to present merely 

 an individual variation. The same appears to be Dr. Walker's 

 opinion, as Pt. Edwardsii alone is included in his list of As- 

 samese mammalia. Mr. Hodgson has also sent it from Nepal as 

 his Pt. leucocephalus (Journ. As. Soc. iv. 700), together with the 

 Cynopterus marginatus as his Pt.pyrivorus (ibid.), which latter has 

 likewise been received by the Society from Assam and Arracan, 

 and both of these species appear to be common throughout 

 India ; the former also doubtless constituting the large " Hying 

 fox" so abundant in the Maldives and Laccadives. The third 

 Indian species of frugivorous bat, Pt. Dussumieri (of which a 

 description will be found in Journ. As. Soc. xii., 176), is still 

 wanting to the Society's collection. 



Of Cynopterus marginatus, I have been keeping three live 



* It is included in Mr. Elliot's new catalogue of the mammalia of penin- 

 sular India. 



f A pair of the Stenops said to have been brought from Singapore, have 

 just been put up at auction at sixty rupees ! The Nycticebus is common in 

 Arracan. 



X The Mauritius species is styled Pt. vulgaris, v. rubricollis, Geoff., in 

 P.Z. S. ]831, p. 45. 



