1889.] MR. BLANFORD ON THE HIMALAYAN MARMOTS. 453 



Mr. W. T. Blanford, F.Z.S., made the following remarks in 

 reference to the Himalayan Marmots now living in the Society's 

 Gardens : — 



" There are at present in the Gardens two ]Marmots from the 

 Himalaya, said to have been obtained originally from Bhutan — one, 

 a male, presented by Captain Greenstreet, the other, a female, by 

 Sir Ashley Eden. 



" These Marmots have been identified with A. caudatiis, Jacque- 

 niont. This species was originally described from Kashmir, and 

 has hitherto, so far as I am aware, only been obtained from the 

 mountains north of the Kashmir valley. I have never yet seen a 

 specimen from the Eastern Himalayas. It is a very rufous Marmot, 

 of large size, with a tail more than half as long as the body and head 

 together. 



" From the Eastern Himalayas the species hitherto procured are 

 referred to^. himaluymms, Hodgson, A. robustus, A. Mihie-Edwards 

 (which is probably only a variety of A. himalayanus), and A. hema- 

 chalamis, of Hodgson, the A. tibetanus of the British-Museum 

 Catalogue, which, to avoid the use of two names intrinsically 

 identical {himalayanus and hetnachaJanus) for two distinct species, 

 I have, at Dr. Sclater's suggestion, recently proposed (' Scientific 

 Results of the Second Yarkand Mission,' Mammalia, p. 35, note) to 

 call after its discoverer, A. hodgsoni. I have given the synonymy of 

 the different species with full references in a paper, ' On the Species 

 of Marmot inhabiting the Himalaya, Tibet, and the adjoining regions ' 

 (J. A. S. B. 187.5, xliv. pt. ii. p. 113),- and the greater portion is 

 repeated in the account of the mammals collected by the second 

 Yarkand Expedition quoted above. 



" I believe that the two animals in the Gardens belong to the 

 smaller race A. hodgsoni (vel hemachalanus). A. himalayanus is a 

 larger animal, paler and more yellowish grey in colour, with a 

 proportionally shorter tail. The distinctions between the different 

 species are given in the works already quoted. The present species 

 has not, so far as I know, been figured ; A. himalayanus and 

 A. caudatus ' are represented in plates xii. and xiii. of the Mammalia 

 of the Second Y^arkand Mission. 



" It is very singular that although I have now seen eight or nine 

 specimens, living or dead, of ^. hodgsoni, all had been in captivity; 

 1 have never seen the skin of a wild example. The habitat I 

 believe to be high elevations in the Eastern Himalayas proper, not 

 Tibet. 



" The following is the synonymy of A. hodgsoni, taken chiefly from 

 the paper already quoted on Himalayan Marmots : — 



"A. hemachalanus, Hodgson, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 410, nee 

 A. himalayanus, Ilodgs. ibid. 1841, x. p. 777- 



"A. tibetanus, Hodgs., Gray, Cat. Mamm. Birds Nepal, p. 14 



1 A. caialafits is also figured in Jacquemont's ' Voyage dans I'lnde,' Atlas, 

 vol. ii. pi. 5 (1844), and A. robustus in Messrs. H. and A. Milne-Edwards' 

 ' Eecborebcs pour servir a FHistoire naturelle des Mammiferes,' pi. xlvii, 



30* 



