NOTES ON THE PORCUPINES OF THE MALAY PENINSULA 

 AND ARCHIPELAGO. 



By Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr., 



Assistant Curator, Division Mammals, U. S. National Museum 



The following notes are of a preliminar}^ nature only, and are 

 written with the idea of bringing' together in one place a consideration 

 of the s^'stematic names of the Malaj^an porcupines and the characters 

 by which these animals are arranged into natural groups, both of 

 which considerations are at present scattered through various publi- 

 cations. The main features brought out in this paper are the division 

 of the Old World porcupines into two subfamilies; the revival of 

 Cuvier's name Acanthlon as a genus for the short-tailed Mala3^an 

 porcupines; the revival of Linnteus's name Hi/strLv hrachyura as the 

 proper specific designation of the short-tailed porcupine of the Malay 

 Peninsula; the description of a new genus and species of short-tailed 

 porcupine collected in northern Sumatra by Dr. W. L. Abbott in l'J06; 

 and the description of a new species of Atherurus from Pulo Terutau, 

 otf the west coast of the Mala}' Peninsula. The presence of two dis- 

 tinct genera of long-tailed porcupines in the Malayan region caused 

 considerable confusion in the use of names by the older writers, but 

 fJentink," in ISO-i, clearly pointed out the true status of these groups. 

 Seba was well acquainted with three of the four genera of Old World 

 porcupines that have been recognized up to the present time, and it 

 was largely from his descriptions and plates that Linnanis in the tenth 

 edition of the Systema Naturae based three names of the Old World 

 porcupines, which at that time were regarded as so many distinct 

 species and not as distinct generic types as they have since been con- 

 sidered. 



It is to regretted that more examples of the typical genus Ilystrix 

 have not been available in the preparation of these notes for deter- 

 mining the true status of the genus, Acantluon^ which has usually l)een 



« Notes Leyden Museum, XVI, 1894, p. 205. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXXM— No. 1552. 

 Proc. N. M. vol. xxxii— 07 37 675 



