i So THE MALA Y PRO VINCE 



Among the members of the mouse tribe, the Indian house-rat is 

 well known within the Malay area, where there also occurs the closely- 

 allied lesser rat (Mus concolor), which lives in the roofs of wooden buildings. It is 

 well known in Pegu, Tenasserim, and the Mergui Islands, but probably has a wider 

 distribution. This rat is 4 inches long, the tail being rather longer than the 

 body, and it has a rough coat interspersed with bristles on the back, which is 

 reddish brown above and paler below. The palm-mouse (Vandeleuria oleracea), 

 which occurs for the most part in India, Ceylon, Assam, and Burma as far as 

 Yunnan, is a remarkable species, representing a genus by itself, and is noticeable on 

 account of its habit of living in trees and bushes, especially palms and bamboos. 

 Here it builds a nest consisting of grass and leaves, which at the proper season 

 contains from three to four young. Equally noteworthy is the mouse known as 

 Chiropodomys gliroides, which is also the only representative of its kind. It has 

 uniformly close hair, which becomes still thicker on the tail. In colour this mouse 

 is brown above and white below. It is distributed all over the Malay countries, 

 occurring in Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Java, and Borneo. 

 Black-Bellied One vole, the black-bellied Microtus melanogaster, occurs in the 



Vole. upper Irawadi valley. It is yellowish brown above and dark brown 

 beneath, with a ground-colour of dark ashy grey. The head and body measure 

 3|- inches, and the tail a little over an inch. This vole ranges into Malaya from 

 south Tibet and south-west China. 



Very characteristic of the Malay province are the bamboo-rats, the common 

 bay species (Rhizomys badius) inhabiting the foot of the Himalaya, Nepal, 

 Sikhim, Bhutan, Manipur, Burma, and Siam. The close fur, which conceals the 

 ears, is of a chestnut or greyish brown colour. 



The bay bamboo-rat makes its home in a burrow, or sometimes beneath the 



root of a tree, or in thick tall grass, the teeth as well as the claws being used in 



digging. In the evenings this rodent issues forth from its hiding-place to feed on 



grass, corn, and bamboo-shoots ; it is also said to be fond of roots and to take up 



its abode in situations where it can obtain them readily. Another kind, the 



larger bamboo-rat (R. sumatrensis), ranges from Siam to Tenasserim ; it is of 



large size, measuring 17 inches to the root of the tail, the tail itself being about 



5£ inches long. In colour it is dark ashy grey or light brown above, somewhat 



darker down the middle of the back, and paler below. A third kind (R. pruinosus) 



apparently ranges from Assam to Cambodia and China. 



The true porcupines are represented in the Malay province by 

 Porcupines. -T ■ • i 



the Himalayan and Bengal species, as well as by a third kind, the 



long-tailed Hystrix longicauda, which inhabits the Malay Peninsula and Islands, 



and also by the small H. ywnnanensis, of Yunnan, which lacks the crest of the 



other forms. 



Of the brush-tailed porcupines one species is indigenous to western and central 



Africa, and the other to Burma and the Malay province. These rodents are much 



smaller and more rat-like than the true porcupines, from which they differ by 



their long scaly tails, terminating in a tuft of flattened and alternately wide and 



narrow spines. The flattened spines of the body are grooved, and taper towards 



the tip. The Malay species (Atherura macrura) is about 22 inches long, exclusive 



