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SOME NOTES ON THE GIANT SQUIRRELS OF 

 INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 



BY 



R. C. Wroughton, F.Z.S. 



I had occasion recently to lay out, for comparison, all the speci- 

 mens of this group, in the Collection of the Natural History Museum, 

 S. Kensington, and to look up all the original descriptions of 

 species. 



It seems to me that the publication of a few notes of the result 

 of my examination would not only be of interest to members but might 

 induce some of them to obtain and present specimens through this 

 Society, to the National Collection, to help to fill up some of the 

 important gaps in that series. 



Blanford, in his ' Mammals,' recognised three species, viz., Sciwus 

 indicus, S. hicolor and S. macrurus. He there merely referred to 

 varieties, which occur in all three of these forms, without exactly 

 differentiating them, but, later, in the Journal of this Society (1897, 

 Vo\. XI, p. 300), he accepted 4 forms of the first species mentioned 

 tibove under the names — (1) -6'. indicus (s.s.) ; f'2.) S. indicus malabar- 

 hus ; (3) S, indicus hengalensis ; and (4) S. indicus dealhatus : the 

 last two names were given by himself on that occasion. 



In more recent years these Oriental Giant Squirrels have been 

 ■separated from Sciurus, in a genus by themselves, under the name of 

 Ratufa. 



The members of this genus seem to be particularly plastic under 

 changes of environment, but at the same time the variation seems to 

 be quite uniform, under the same local conditions. Consequently, we 

 seem to find a form in a comparatively quite small local area diff'ering, 

 slightly it may be, but, nevertheless, definitely and constantly, from 

 all its neighbours of the surrounding area, yet no intermediate stages 

 bridging this difference are forthcoming. The material at my dis- 

 posal for examination is insufficient to enable me to confidently state 

 this to be the case, but it is undoubtedly shadowed forth by the case 

 of Ratufa indica. Between the (practically) self-coloured indica of 

 the northern part of the Western Ghats and the much blackened 

 ma.r«ma» of Travancore, etc., we hsLxe Blanford' s benga^nsis of the 

 Ganges Valley, But I belieye that when we, have specimens from a 



