Descriptions of East Asiatic Mammals 153 
of the tail from 7 to 9 inches; the hind foot measures from 
2y 2 to 2% inches. The range includes Assam, Manipur, and 
Arakan. In Cochin-China and Annam the race H. p. pierrei is 
found. In Nepal the race H. p. nipalensis apparently undergoes 
great seasonal variation in color. The Javan H. orientalis may 
be a race of personata. 
THE BADGERS AND HOG BADGERS (SUBFAMILY MELIN^) 
These heavily built, rather long-snouted mustelids have the 
body short and broad, the tail short, the legs stout, and the broad 
paws equipped with long, strong digging claws. The color is 
characteristic : the upper parts are grayish ; the underparts, legs, 
and feet are black ; a dark mark, beginning at the whiskers, runs 
back through the eye to enclose the ear, which is pale like the 
back. Old World Badgers have much narrower heads than 
American Badgers, genus Taxidea. 
Two genera belong in this subfamily, Meles, the True 
Badgers, and Arctonyx, the Hog Badgers. In the True Badgers 
the throat and chin are black like the feet ; in Arctonyx the throat 
is white and there is a dark line extending from the corner of 
the mouth to the ear. In the former the nose pad is separated 
from the lip by a hairy area ; in the latter the nose pad continues 
to the lip as a naked area. 
The True Badgers, genus Meles, are represented in eastern 
Asia by one species, Meles meles. This species is restricted to 
the temperate zone except in southeast China, where the race 
M. m. leptorhynchus reaches Fukien, Hong Kong, and Hainan. 
The length of the head and body in this race is 22 inches, tail 
4% inches, hind foot 4 inches. Farther west the southern limit 
of the Badgers is reached in the Himalayas and extreme north- 
ern Burma by the local race M. m. leucurus. The northern limit 
of the Chinese Badger, M. m. leptorhynchus, is mapped by 
Ognev as a little south of the northern tip of Sakhalin. It is thus 
