4(j2 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE ASD PRODUCTIONS. 



animals ; but if tlieir keepiT is with thcin, tlicy arc easily restrained, and a child 

 can drive them off. Curiosity and distrust of an unknown object lias quite as 

 much to do with their behaviour, alarmin<; thou.<;h it often is, as any special dislike 

 to a Euro])eau. Horses, however, are undoubtedly distasteful to tiiem, and a horse- 

 man will always act wisely by giving a herd a wide berth. 



Dr. Mason remarks: "There is perhaps no domesticated animal in the world 

 concerning which learned men in Europe and America" (and Asia he might have 

 added) " are so profoundly ignorant as the Buffalo. From misapprehensions of the 

 character of the animal, they have very generally concluded that the unicorn of 

 the English Scriptures was the Buffalo. Gesenius, Hengstenburg, and De Wette 

 in Germany, render the word by 'der Buffel.' and Stuart, llobinson, and Noyes, 

 in America, say ' Buffalo.' The oriental Buffalo, obsert'es one, appears to be so 

 closely allied to our common ox, that without attentive examination it might be 

 easily mistaken for a variety of that animal." Dr. Mason was, liowever, far from 

 exliausting the absurdities of authors regarding so marvellous a beast. In Webster 

 and Wheeler's People's Dictionary one of the definitions given is a "kind of African 

 stag," whilst in the Cyclopaedia of India the following cluster of mistakes is recorded : 

 "The buffalo inhabits Thibet" which is absurd, "but is domcdicafed in Inilia," 

 tlie fact being it is indiffenous in the wild state to the grassy plains along the Ganges 

 and Berhampootra, " tlie Indian Archipelago and Southern Europe. It is tlie only 

 indigenous ruminant in Ceylon," a statement one would hardly have expected to see 

 in a work i)ublished but ten years ago, with Kelaai t's ' Prodromus ' in the hands 

 of the compiler ! 



Order CAENIYOEA. 



Raptorial mammals, some killing their prey, some eating carrion, and some sub- 

 sisting on a mixed diet. Toes with sharp or blunt claws. Mammae abdominal. 

 Cla\-icles wanting or rudimentary. 



a. Plantigrada. 



Family Ursidse. 



Helaectos, Horsfield. 



Dentition, I. f ; C. f ; P.M. -J- ; M. f . 



The ' sun bears ' are distinguished from typical bears by their small size, short 

 fur and rounded skulls. 



H. Malatanus, Raffles. 



The Bun-bear. Wet-wun (Pig bear). 



Cantor thus describes the Selarclos of the Malayan Peninsula: — "Colour of the 

 young, snout and lips pale ferruginous. Head, back, and outside of the limbs black, 

 mixed with pale rust colour, in consequence of many of the black hairs having the point, 

 or a part next to the point, of the latter colour. Ears, tail, paws and inner side of the 

 extremities shining black. The somewhat woolly hairs of the abdomen arc faintly 

 marked with ferruginous, and are mixed with longer stiff black hairs." The V-mark 

 on the chest is described as variable. In the living animal it is of a pale rust or 

 orange colour, in some individuals with a few small blackisli spots, fading after death 

 to a yellowish white. 



The common b(!ar of Burma is usually rcfeiTcd to this species, but though it may 

 r.'nge into Tenasserim, it is doubtful if it docs so into Pegu, and the correct determi- 

 nation of the species of bears inhabiting Burma has yet to be effected. 



Blyth says this is the only bear which inhabits British Burma, but I greatly 

 question the accuracy of this statement. I believe Urms Tibetanus occurs in Pegu, 

 and is the ' wet wun ' of that province, and I certainly had at Toung-ngoo a young 

 bear with only four upper incisors, which I can hardly suppose to be anything else 

 than a young I'rorhri/us (W.T.). Dr. Mason remarks, " On one occasion, wliile 

 sleeping in a Karen field that had been recently harvested, I was disturbed all night 

 by a drove of them digging up the roots of the sugar-cane that had been left in the 



