1890.] DR. ST. GEORGE MIVART ON THE GENUS CYON. 89 



The numerous other skins in the Museum present a wide range 

 of variation, some having the liair short and harsh, and others having 

 long and more or less woolly hair. There is a light-coloured woolly 

 skin from Nepal (45. 1.8.311); and one specimen, brought by 

 Lieutenant Abbott from Cashmere, which nearly approaches in light- 

 ness of colour and length of hair the specimen of C. alpinus from the 

 Altai. Its skull \ however, which is labelled 158 </, has but a small 

 second upper molar, and the colour of the skin is redder and the fur 

 less soft than that of C. alpinus, even the specimen from the Altai, 

 which is the less white of the two. I would therefore, provisionally 

 at least, retain C. alpinus as a distinct species. 



I have carefully examined the skin from Moulmein (61. 11. 14. 2), 

 which, from its dark back, certainly has an exceptional appearance, 

 and has been regarded as an example of a distinct species, 

 C. rutilans. I cannot, however, detect anything exceptional in its 

 skull. Considering also the gradations of difference in colour and 

 characters of fur between such specimens as that from Malacca 

 (39. 12. 20.3), the true type'' of C. dukhunensis of Sykes, and 

 others with yet longer or darker coats, I have found no external 

 characters which I think can be regarded as specifically distinctive. 

 The teeth of the red forms also vary more or less in size and pro- 

 portion, without such differences coinciding with differences in the 

 coloration, texture, and length of the coat. The two skins from 

 which skulls ^ have been extracted closely resemble each other, 

 while the proportions of their first upper molars differ considerably ; 

 a circumstance which tends to throw doubt on the distinctness of 

 the North-Asiatic species, a doubt, however, which will disappear 

 if future specimens of the latter animal are found to have large 

 upper first molars. 



We may therefore, 1 think, distinguish the species of this genus 

 provisionally as follows : — 



Genus Cyon, Hodgson (1838). 



1. Cyon jAVANicus *. 



Colour normally red ; hair generally rather or very short and not 

 woolly. M^ small. 



' This is Prof. Huxley's No. VI. I. c. 



^ Dr. Murie, in his paper on this species (P. Z. S. 1872, p. 715), observes 

 that the skull " from the Deccan forwarded by Colonel Sykes .... is juvenile, 

 and therefore not to be relied on osteologioally as distinctive of a type." This 

 same skull is referred to by Dr. Grray (Catalogue of Carnivora, &c. 1869, p. 186) 

 as that of Cuon dukhunensis. I find, however, that it is not a C//on at all, but 

 a true Can is. 



^ These are respectively, Nos. 45. 3. 19. 5 and 46. 5. 13. 2. 



* This species has been commonly named sumatretisis, after Hardwicke, 

 whose paper in vol. xiii. of the Linuean Society's ' Transactions ' dates from 

 1822. I do not doubt, however, that it is the same species which was described 

 by F. Cuvier as "Le Loup de Java," in the Diet, des Sc. Nat. torn. viii. (1817), 

 upon whic'n Desmarest founded his species Canis javanicus, published in his 

 ' Mammalogie,' p. 193 — a name which thus dates from 1820, and which there- 

 fore, if I have correctly determined this synonymy, must take precedence. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1890, No. VII. 7 



