433 
NOTE ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE NORTHERN SLOW EORIS 
By 
OLpFIELD THomas, F, R. S. 
(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 
In connection with the examination of a fine specimen of Nycticebus, obtained 
in the Naga Hills by Mr. T. H. Hutton and presented to the National Museum 
by the Bombay Natural History Society, the following nomenclatural points 
have arisen. 
In writing on this group, certain American authors* have used the specific 
name coucang for the form found in Bengal and Assam, this name_ being 
based on Boddaert’s Tardigradus coucang, which in turn was a technical name 
applied to Pennant’s “ Tailless Maucauco .” 
In the third edition of his Quadrupeds, Pennant gave two different figures of 
the “ Tailless Maucauco ” the second of which (obviously a copy of Vosmaer’s 
plate) corresponds with the Assam and Bengal species, while the first is clearly 
one of the Malay or Island forms, with strong facial markings, including a bifur- 
cated dark line on the crown. 
But neither Stone and Rehn, nor Lyon have noticed that, in the first edition 
of Pennant, which is alone quoted by Boddaert, the latter animal, the form with 
a bifurcated line, is the only one figured and described, so that it must be the 
basis of the specific name coucang, which should therefore go to one of the Mala- 
yan species with this character. It is true that a mention of Bengal is made as 
locality, but this has evidently come in from some other source, and does not 
affect the fact that the description and figure apply to the Malayan, and not to 
the Northern form. To which Malayan species the name coucang should go is 
not at present clear, and perhaps may never be certainly determinable. 
But for the Northern form, Geoffroy’s name bengalensis now becomes available, 
and will stand for the animal found in Assam, and perhaps in Bengal proper. | 
The beautiful specimen of Nycticebus bengalensis obtained by Mr. Hutton, the 
first we have received, agrees remarkably well with Vosmaer’s characteristic 
figures of 1770, and should undoubtedly be determined as the hengalensis of 
Geoffroy, based on that figure, unless a definitely different form is hereafter found 
in Bengal itself. 
Mr. Hutton gives the following interesting account of the animal :— 
“ Tt was caught in a snare in this district by a Kukilast week. The animal 
is decidedly rare in this neighbourhood, and is seldom taken, the man who 
brought it to me having not seen one before and declaring that it must be 
an immature hoolock. The Kukis have, however, a name (Mittwngkot) for 
the animal and regard it with awe as being the priest of the hoolock. Had 
the captor known what it was, he would have let it go. It is said to have 
exceptional vitality, and the one of which the skin is now sent, certainly 
proved to have, as when brought to me it had been injured internally, as it 
afterwards appeared, and had one wrist broken and had not had food pro- 
bably for some days. Nevertheless it survived the amputation of the in- 
jured limb under chloroform, and lived for three days, taking only a little 
milk, and when it became obvious that there was some internal injury, and 
it was decided that it would be kinder to kill it, this was not done with the 
ease which one would expect in the case of so small an animal. The Angami 
and Sema Nagas to whom I showed the animal had never seen one and said 
they had no name for such. I am sending it to you as I very much doubt 
whether you have received a specimen from Mr. Mills, from this district.” 
* Stone and Rebn, P. Ac. Sci. Philad. LIV., p. 187, 1920; Loyn, P. U. 8. 
Nat. Mus., XXXL, p, 532, 1906. 
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