272 Scientific JVotices. 



During my residence in the hill provinces above mentioned, I have at 

 different times shot four of them, and have had twro ahve, and the bodies 

 and skins of perhaps a dozen, brought to me by peasants, (some males, some 

 females,) besides seeing several others killed. The animal varies very 

 much in colour. In all the upper half of the head, legs, rump, and tail, 

 are very dark blackish brown, in some black. The chin and lower jaw are 

 pure white : but the throat is in some, bright yellow ; in others, of an orange 

 tinge; in others again light tawny. The rest of the body is tawny with the 

 tips of the hairs black; but in some the tawny darkens into brown, and 

 even dark brown, while more of the ends than the very tips of the hairs 

 are black, so as to make the animal appear almost all black. It would 

 not seem to change with the season, for at the same time I have seen 

 different specimens fully grown with the colours differing as above men- 

 tioned. The enclosed sketch is copied from one made by myself in June, 

 1827, from a specimen which I shot on that day. I have seldom, if ever, 

 seen one with less black about it, but I have seen them of every shade 

 between this and the one sent to the Zoological Society, which is now much 

 darker than when first brought to me in September, 1828, when it was 

 about four months old. It had been caught when not many days old, and 

 was so tame, that it was always kept loose about a well, sporting about the 

 windlasses, posts, &c., and playing tricks with the people who came to 

 draw water. 



The length of the one from which the sketch is taken, from the tip of 

 the nose to the setting on of the tail, was 20f inches. Length of tail 19|^ 

 inches. 



The native name of the animal in Gurhwall and Kumoun, is Tootu- 

 ralae ; in Sirmoor, Koseah or Koosiar. 



[The sketch inclosed by Capt. Shore to Mr. Vigors resembles very nearly 

 the figure given in the Zoological Journal, Vol. iv. pi. viii, as the Mustela 

 Hardwickii, which is synonymous with Must, flavigula, Bodd. The 

 Hying specimen in the collection of the Zoological Society is so much 

 darker, as to induce us to give a second representation of it in a Supple- 

 mentary Plate, for the purpose of exhibiting the extremes o colour 

 of a very rare and interesting animal. — Ed.] 



