Ixx MAMMALOGY OF THE HIMALAYAS. 
in the British Museum exhibits the structure too obviously to have otherwise escaped the notice of that 
accurate Zoologist. The vibrissze of L. Roylii are nearly as long as the head and ears together, and of 
a uniform brown colour. The arms and fore-arms, and, I presume, the thighs and legs, for, as I have 
already observed, the posterior members are wanting in the specimen, are covered with fur of the same 
colour and quality as that on the body, only shorter; but the whole upper face of the carpus, and 
probably also of the tarsus, is covered with short adpressed hair of a bright reddish yellow colour. The 
soles of the fore feet present four naked tubercles, corresponding to the extremities of the toes, and a 
fifth, considerably farther back, which represents the heel, and is separated from the others by a space 
covered with very short brown hair. The thumb is situated behind the other toes, and, like them, has a 
small sharp claw of a dusky horn colour. 
Dr. Royle obtained his specimen on the Choor Mountain. I take it to be this animal which Captain 
Mundy* met with during his interesting tour recently published, and which he describes as something 
between a hare and a guinea-pig; and it is probably, also, the tailless rat which Turner observed. in 
Thibet, where the banks of a lake were everywhere perforated by its burrows.{ 
EDENTATA. 
Of this family, the only species known to inhabit the Continent of Asia, the short-tailed Manis, or 
Scaly Anteater of authors (Manis pentadactyla of Linneus, M. macroura of Desmarest) is found in 
the lower and less elevated parts of the central regions: but all the Edentata are essentially inhabitants 
of the warmer parts of the earth, more especially of tropical America, and we cannot therefore expect to 
find their forms reproduced in the Himalayas. Mr. Hodgson has described the Manis of Nepal as a 
new species, under the name of M. auritus,§ on the supposition of its being distinct from the common 
species of the plains of Upper India, the Badjarkita of the Bengalese (M. macroura), which has been 
known ever since the expedition of Alexander the Great, and is mentioned by A®lian under the name of 
Parray ne ; but Mr. Hodgson in this, as in many other instances, has been misled by Griffith’s Transla- 
tion of the Regne Animal, a compilation which has obtained a much greater authority in India than its 
merits entitle it to, or than it enjoys at home. 
PACHYDERMATA. 
The great Saul Forest, which extends for many hundred miles along the bases of the Himalayan 
Mountains, affords shelter to vast multitudes of animals, of which it is probable that many species still 
remain undescribed. Among other genera, the large Pachydermata abound in these situations ; the 
Elepnant and Rhinoceros (Elephas indicus and Rhinoceros unicornis), are extremely numerous; and 
in the rainy season, or in times of scarcity, make frequent inroads into the lower hills, and commit great 
depredations among the crops of the natives. The Indian Rhinoceros affords a remarkable instance of 
the obstructions which the progress of knowledge may suffer, and the gross absurdities which not 
unfrequently result from the wrong application of a name. This animal, to whose horn the superstition 
of the Persians and Arabs has in all ages attributed peculiar virtues, became known to the Greeks 
_ through the description of Ctesias, a credulous physician of that nation, who appears to have resided at 
the court of Persia in the time of the younger Cyrus, about 400 years before the birth of Christ. His 
- account, though mixed up with great deal of credulous absurdity, contains a very tolerable and per- 
| fectly recognizable description of the Rhinoceros, under the ridiculous name, however, of the Indian 
sce Ass ; 
* Tour in India, II., 196. t Journey to Thibet, 211. 
¢ I have since seen perfect specimens of this animal, but have nothing to add to the description here given. 
§ Journ. As. Soc, V. 234, : 
