ScIuRUuUS. 275 
Rhinosciurus, or long-snouted squirrel, an animal singularly like a 
Tupaia. The squirrels, as a whole, form a natural and well-defined 
group, with a remarkable uniformity of dentition and _ skull, but of 
infinite variation in colour, In fact, it is most puzzling and mis- 
leading to find so great a diversity of pelage as is exhibited by a single 
species. I was shown by 
a fnend a few months 
ago a fine range of colours 
in skins of a single species 
from Burmah—S. caziceps. 
I cannot attempt to de- 
scribe them from memory, 
but the diversity was so 
marked that I believe they 
would have been taken by 
unscientific observers for 
so many different species. 
Now in domesticated ani- 
mals there is great varia- 
tion in colouring, but not in the majority of wild species. What 
the causes are that operate in the painting of the skin of an animal no 
one can say, any more than one can say how particular spots are 
arranged on the petal of a flower or the wing of a butterfly. That 
specific liveries have been designed by an all-wise Creator for purposes 
of recognition I have no doubt, as well as for purposes of deception and 
protection—in the former case to keep certain breeds pure, and in the 
latter to protect animals from attack by enabling them better to hide 
themselves, as we see in the case of those birds and quadrupeds which 
inhabit exposed cold countries turning white in winter, and in the 
mottled skin of the Galeopithicus, which is hardly discernible from the 
rough bark of the tree to which it clings. I have hardly ever noticed 
such varied hues in any wild animals, although the Viverride are some- 
what erratic in colouring, as in the Indian squirrels, and it is doubtful 
whether several recorded species are not so nearly allied as to be in 
fact properly but one and the same. ‘There is much in common in at 
least five species of Burmese squirrels, and it is open to question whether 
S. caniceps and S. Blanfordii are not the same. Dr. Anderson writes : 
‘“‘T have examined a very extensive series of squirrels belonging to the 
various forms above described, viz., S. Aygerythrus, S. caniceps, S. Phayret 
and 5S. Blanfordii, and of others which appears to indicate at least, if 
not to prove, that all of them are in some way related to each other.” 
In another place he says: “The skull of an adult male, S. caniceps, 
which had the bright red golden colour of the back well developed, 
presents so strong a resemblance to the skull of S. Blanfordii, that it is 
z.2 
Skull of Pteromys (Flying Squirrel). 
