THE GIANT SQUIRRELS OF INDIA, BURMA & CEYLON. 885 



1. Ratufa macroura, Penn. 



1769. Sciurus macrourus, Pennant. Ind, Zool. I., pi. L. 



1785. Sciurus ceilonens is, Boddaert, Elench. An. p. 117. 



Colour. — Above uniform black, below ' ochraceous buff.' Head 

 ochraceous buff except for the forehead, above the level of the eyes, 

 and a mark, shaped like an inverted ' V ' on the cheek, between eye 

 and ear, black. A pale patch on the vertex between the ears. 

 Forearms and hindlegs, below the upper thigh, buft". Hands and 

 feet black. Tail black. 



SbdL — Small. Nasals showing a slight expansion posteriorly in 

 the skull I have seen. 



I)imensiuns—}iesid and body, 300 ; tail, 340 ; hindfoot, 75. 

 -S'itM^/.— Greatest length, 67 ; basilar length, 50 ; zygomatic breadth, 

 40 : nasals, 20 ; diastema, 14-4 ; braincase breadth, 28*3 ; inter- 

 orbital breadth, 25'5 ; upper molar series, 13-2. 



Synonymy. — There has been much confusion in the naming of this 

 species. Pennant, however, gave a figure of his S. macrourus which 

 admits of no doubt. It is a uniformly black animal with a yellow 

 belly and yellow fore and hindlegs, with black feet. — Boddaert's 

 ceilonensis was confessedly a renaming of macrourus. 



All naturalists since then seem to have ignored this black form 

 altogether, and given the name wa<?rowrMs to one of the other forms 

 and even to the continental R. indica maxima. Blauford has, in his 

 ' Mammalia/ actually transposed the names macroura and tennenti. 



Distribviion, — Owing to this difficulty of exactly appreciating of 

 which particular form any given naturalist is treating, I have found it 

 impossible to localise the habitat of this form. Blanford declares it 

 to be a hill form, but I think this will prove to be a mistake and 

 typical R. macroura will be found to inhabit low-lying forests. Any 

 information which members can record on this point will be valuable. 



2. Ratufa macroura ceylonica, Erxl. 



1777. Sciurus vulgaris ceylonicus, Erxleben. Syst. Kegn. An. 

 p. 416. 



Colour, — Pattern exactly as in true macroura, but a dark * bay ' 

 everywhere substituted for the black in that form. Tail often with 

 •white tipped hairs especially in distal f . 



