638 MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. [June 23, 
69. Hysrrrx suscRIsTATA, sp. nov. (Suberested Porcupine.) 
Hystrix, sp., Swinhoe, P. Z. 8. 1864, p. 378. 
I had often heard of a Porcupine occurring both at Swatow (pro- 
vince Kwangtung) and at Foochow (province Fokien), and knew 
that it was an animal well known to the Chinese as the “ Bristly 
Pig”? (Court dialect, Haochoo; Amoy, Ho-te); but it was not till 
May 1867 that I procured specimens. One of these was brought 
to me alive, and I shipped it for the Society; but it got overfed 
by the passengers, and died before the vessel left the port. The 
other specimen, a skin with skull, I have brought home. The 
skull is very similar in form to the two of H. hodgsoni, Gray, 
in the British Museum, and is like in form of teeth. It is the 
skull-of an old animal, whereas the Museum specimens have open 
sutures, and show juvenility. It is larger, and exhibits differences 
of detail; but it is questionable whether these may not be attri- 
butable to advanced age. Judging from the skull alone, one might 
be inclined to identify our animal with the Nepaul species; but the 
external form of the Chinese Porcupine displays a conspicuous occi- 
pital erest, which is entirely absent in the other. Hodgson and 
other zoologists lay great stress on the want of this crest (see Water- 
house, Mammalia, iii. 461) ; and the mounted skins in the Museum, 
both more than two-thirds the size of my specimens, bear no trace 
of it. My specimens, on the contrary, differing in age, inter se, 
have each a crest. I follow, therefore, Dr. J. E. Gray’s advice, and 
separate the Chinese animal from its Nepaulese ally, though the ques- 
tion as to its distinctness will not be satisfactorily determined until 
we ascertain either that the Himalayan Porcupine has the crest 
when fully adult, or that the Chinese Porcupine is destitute of it in 
its younger state. 
The following is a description from the living animal, corrected 
by help of the skin :— 
Snout to root of tail about 28 inches; tail about 5, covered at its 
base by the protruding quills of the ramp, and carrying a bunch of 
short white truncated quills on pedicles on the apical third of its 
length. Palm to end of nails 3 inches ; sole to end of nails 4. 
Head brown, with rather bare brownish flesh-coloured cheeks. Iris 
deep brown. A few short scattered hairs round eyes. Ears oval, 
flesh-brown, sparsely covered with whitish hairs. Nose deep brown. 
Muzzle and lips with short brown hairs. General colour light 
purplish black, much deeper on the legs ; white on the long hairs of 
hind neck, with a crescent-shaped mark of the same colour across 
breast. Head, legs, and belly clothed with short stiff bristles ; 
neck, anterior half of back, and sides with short furrowed black 
spines from 1 to 3 or more inches long, ending in sharp points, 
thicker on the back, and tipped with yellowish. From the occiput 
spring long stiff black bristles, white ou the apical half; and along 
the hind neck runs a bushy ridge of the same from 2 to 5 inches 
long, black, with more or less white. Hind part of back with long, 
thick, rigid quills, the longest about 9 inches, mostly white at base, 
with more or less white at tip; their central portions black, without 
