218 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Jamaica Inst., 1897, 2, p. 471), doubts the supposed destruction 

 by ticks, and probably with reason. The diminution was more 

 likely due to other causes, by which a gradual adjustment of the 

 newly added faunal element was taking place. 



Three specimens of mongoose, taken on the island of Grenada in 

 1910, are all in worn pelage. One appears to be in process of molting, 

 and has shed the long hairs along the middorsal line of the rump and 

 base of the tail. A comparison of these specimens with a series of 

 Indian M. grisaus, to which the mongooses of the West Indies have 

 hitherto been tacitly referred, shows at once that they are smaller, 

 and differently colored. On further study, they prove to be un- 

 questionably M. birmanicus of eastern India (Burmah, Assam), and 

 exactly agree in external appearance with a skin of that species from 

 "East India" in the collection of the Museum. The long hairs of 

 the back are usually five-banded; the basal ring is dark, the succeed- 

 ing one whitish, the next black, then one of buff-yellow, with finally 

 a black tip. These hairs cover the entire dorsal surfaces, giving a 

 general yellowish brown grizzled appearance. Ventrally, the hairs 

 are without the black tips, and the buff-yellow ring is so prominent 

 as to impart its color to the throat, anal region, and ventral part of 

 the base and sides of the tail proximally. The tarsus is naked along 

 a line that narrows to the heel. The skull is decidedly smaller than 

 that of M. griscus. The external measurements of two adults from 

 Grenada are as follows, the first dimension in each case being that of 

 a male, the second that of a female: total length, 666 mm., 561; tail, 

 265, 255; hind-foot, 60, 60; ear from meatus, 21, 23. The skulls 

 of the same individuals me'asure respectively: greatest length, 68, 

 64; basal length, 65, 60; palatal length, 38, 35; zygomatic breadth, 

 35, 32; postorbital constriction, 11, 11; length of upper cheek teeth, 

 anterior base of canine to back of molar 2 , 25.5, 24; length of premolar 4 

 from posterior end to tip of inner lobe, 8, 7; transverse width of upper 

 molar 2 , 3.6, 3.5; lower cheek teeth, 28.8, 27.5; lower mandible from 

 condyle to tip of incisors, 41, 42.6. 



In addition to the specimens from Grenada, the Museum has a 

 skin and skull of the same species taken in April, 1909, by Dr. Thomas 

 Barbour at Port Antonio, Jamaica. Browne, in his History of 

 Jamaica, speaks of what seem to have been at least two species of 

 mongoose that had been brought captive to Jamaica from Africa, 

 but these were apparently never loosed. 



In the seventies, mongooses were brought from Jamaica to Grenada, 

 as I am told by Mr. Septimus Wells of that island, who remembers 



