PTEROMYS. 299 
No. 303. PTEROMYS ALBIVENTER. 
Pteromys tnornatus of Jerdon, No, 161. 
The White-bellied Flying Squirrel, 
NaTIvE Name.—Lusigugar, i.e., flying rat, Kashmiri. 
Hasitat.— From Nepal, along the North-western Himalayas to 
Kashmir. 
DeEscripTion.— Upper parts grizzled reddish-brown or dark grey with 
a rufous tinge, or a reddish-bay, darker on the upper surface of the para- 
chute, and outside of limbs ; head, neck, and breast greyish-rufous; cheeks 
grey; chin, throat and lower part of breast white, faintly tinged with rufous 
in the belly ; under part of parachute rufous, tinged white, with a greyish 
posterior margin. Occasionally a dark brown band over the nose and 
round the eyes; the whiskers and feet blackish. 
S1zE.—Head and body, 14 inches; tail, 16 inches. 
This is a common squirrel at Simla. One was killed close to the 
house in which I was staying in 1880 at the Chota Simla end of the sta- 
tion by a native servant, who threw a stick at it, and knocked it off a 
bough, and I heard of two living ones being hawked about for sale about 
the same time—which, to my regret, I failed to secure, some one having 
bought them. They are common also in Kashmir, where they live in 
holes made in the bark of dead fir-trees. They are said to hybernate 
during the season there. A melanoid variety of this species is men- 
tioned by Dr. Anderson as being in the Leyden Museum. It was obtained 
by Dr. Jerdon in Kashmir, and presented to the Museum by the late 
Marquis of Tweeddale. 
No. 304. PTEROMYS CANICEPS. 
Sciuropterus caniceps of Jerdon, No, 163. 
The Grey-headed Flying Squirrel, 
Native NaMe.—JSiyom-chimbo, Lepcha. 
Hapsitat,—sikim and Nepal. 
DescripTion.—At first sight this seems to be a grey-headed form of 
the last species, but with larger ears ; the head is iron grey ; round the 
eyes and a patch above and below orange fulvous or chestnut ; the base 
of the ears the same. Regarding this Dr. Anderson, on comparing it 
with the last, writes: ‘‘On a more critical examination of P. caniceps it 
appears to me, judging from Hodgson’s types of the species, that it 
has larger ears, and if this should prove to be a persistent character, 
then the grey head and the chestnut speck above and below the eye, 
and the bright chestnut tuft behind the ears, assume a specific im- 
portance which they would not otherwise have.” But he adds that 
his observations” are merely from preserved specimens, and that the 
