MYDAUS MELICEPS. 43 



while in a nearly adult specimen this band is very com- 

 plete and extremely broad. A more than halfgrown spe- 

 cimen in our collection presents the following mode of 

 coloration : on the nape a white triangle with its top 

 towards the back, from the middle of the base of this 

 triangle a white line runs for about half an inch towards 

 a crista between the eyes, and from the top of the triangle 

 goes a white line diminishing in width to about half 

 the middle of the back of the animal, leaving no trace 

 of white on the haunches. 



Our Java-specimens show the typical brown color growing 

 sooty brown in adult animals. I fail to detect sexual 

 differences in the mode of coloration. As a rule the extre- 

 mity of the tail is white, the basal part is colored like 

 the rest of the body ; one of our specimens , a nearly 

 fullgrown male, has the basal part of the tail white like 

 the rest of that organ. 



Our skulls of Mydaus-s]pecimens from Java present very 

 striking and difficult to understand peculiarities , namely 

 small skulls make the impression as if they are elder 

 than much larger ones ; so a skull long 82 mm. and broad 

 40 mm. has all the bones ankylosed , so that nowhere a 

 trace of a suture is to be detected , meanwhile another 

 much larger skull long 92 mm. and broad 44 mm. shows 

 very distinctly all the separate bones. Have we here per- 

 haps to deal with constant local varieties born by perma- 

 nent isolation? 



Specimens from Sumatra are unknown to me by autopsy 

 and nothing has been recorded concerning differences in 

 development of the skull in the sense above mentioned. 

 Raffles related that one line of white runs along the back, 

 which covers the whole crown of the head and becomes 

 narrower as it runs backward to the tail , which is also 

 white; the rest of the body is of a dark-broion color. 

 Dr. J. E. Gray ^) calls the Sumatra-specimens of the 



1) Catalogue of Carnivorous, Pachydermatous and Edentate Mammals in 

 the British Museum, 1869, p. 131. 



Notes from the Leyden ]VIuseviin, "Vol. XVII. 



