THE PREVOST SQUIRREL 1 85 



squirrel, brought home by M. Diard from Malacca, 

 are now at Leyden; but English readers may see 

 specimens in the museums of Manchester and 

 Liverpool. Schnnis prevosti bangkanus has the iron 

 grey of the cheeks extended to the sides of the neck, 

 and a narrower white lateral band ; the type specimen 

 was sent by Heer J, F, R. S. Van den Bossche, an 

 old resident in the Island of Banca, to the Leyden 

 Museum in 1861. A greyish phase [var bornoensis) 

 having the outside of the thighs iron grey, not white 

 as in the three preceding forms, was taken by Diard, 

 who obtained the three type specimens (a male and 

 two females at Leyden) at Pontianak in Borneo/ 

 Greybacked individuals have in recent years been 

 taken on Mounts Dulit and Kina Balu. The late 

 Mr. Whitehead in March, 1887, took two greybacked 

 specimens at 1000 feet on Mount Kina Balu; in 

 1888 he obtained another greybacked and also a 

 black //'^lycj/z at the same altitude on this mountain. 

 A specimen of the black variety {Scmi'us pluto of 

 Dr. Gray) is used to illustrate the phenomenon of 

 melanism at the Natural History Museum, while 

 another is preserved at Liverpool. The fur of the 

 so-called Schwits phcto is dull red underneath, like 

 dying embers in a lump of coal. In the New World 

 this sable Prevost is parallelled by the dark variety 



1 See Professor Sclile;;ers valuable paper on East Indian srmirrels in 

 the Nederlandscli Tijdsclirift voor de Dierkunde for 1S03. One of the 

 two pi-evosti '\\\ the IJritish Museum before 1843 had the end of the tail 

 "pale" = probably tinted witli brown. They were said to have come from 

 India, where the species does not occur. 



