474 
NOTES ON MESOPOTAMIAN MAMMALS 
By 
Capt. C. R. S. Pitman, D.S.0., M.C., M.B.0.U. 
Having read the report on the Mammals of Mesopotamia in Journal 
Vol. X XVII, No. 2, I have realised that I have a good many Field Notes on the 
Mammals of that country, which may be of some value, as I served there from 
January 1916 until April 1918. Iwas principally on the Tigris, from Basra 
to Daur (15 miles upstream of Samarra), with a brief interval on the Euphrates 
at Feluja and the Hindiyeh Barrage from the middle of March 1917 until the 
middle of July that year. 
PacHYURA ETRUSCA—Pigmy Shrew—All the records mentioned are from the 
Tigris. The only one I came across was at the end of March 1917 when my 
Regiment had just arrived at Feluja on the Euphrates. One afternoon while 
we were sitting in the Mess Tent, which had been dug down into the ground, 
a minute shrew with body no bigger than that of a bumble bee, suddenly 
appeared on the table, and was running about for several minutes; and 
although once actually imprisoned under an inverted tumbler by one of my 
brother officers, I failed to secure it as a specimen. 
HEMIECHINUS AURITUS—Long-eared Hedgehog.—Again I note that all the 
specimens recorded are from the Tigris, though Ludlow recorded this species as 
plentiful at Hit, R. Euphrates. Most of my acquaintance with these animals 
was at Feluja onthe banks of the Euphrates during March and April 1917, 
when I found them very common. 
I kept alive all the specimens that were brought to me and for their prison 
dug a pit into the stiff soil, which measured 5 feet in diameter and had vertical 
sides nearly 4 feet in height. 
At the bottom of this pit the various Hedgehog inhabitants excavated burrows 
on the same level as the bottom, but which had a tendency to turn upwards. 
However none of the little prisoners ever escaped by digging right up to the 
surface, and in fact never even got as far as anywhere near it. 
A pair were my first capture and they soon dug themselves in, once they were 
placed in the pit ; the usual length of burrows they excavated was 2 to 3 feet. 
I then obtained 4 youngsters a fortnight old, which apparently cried so much 
their first night in the pit, that two more adults, who may have been the parents, 
were attracted by the noise and fell in. Those youngsters never managed to 
dig more than a few inches into the ground. At night they were all very active 
and I used to watch their antics and see them feed, with the aid of an electric 
torch which did not seem to frighten themin theleast. Ifed them on bread 
and watered milk, raw potatoes, carrots, cucumber and other vegetables, as 
well as dried gram, lentils, dhal and crushed barley. 
With the exception of one of the youngsters which died, they all flourished 
and soon became quite tame, though they kept to their burrows during the day. 
I eventually let them all go, as there was a difficulty of making up and storing 
the skins. 
As all my notes are not handy at the present moment, I cannot say where else 
I came across this species in Mesopotamia, although I know that I have other 
records which include the note of a drowned specimen found near Samarra 
in February 1918. 
FE.LIs cHaus—Jungle Cat.—One day in January 1916, shortly after my arrival 
in Mesopotamia and while on the march up the Tigris between Kurna and 
Ezra’s Tomb, I came across one of these animals, while out small game shoot- 
ing, in thick cover on the river bank in the late afternoon. 
Some of my scouts told me that a Jackal was crouching in a bush and that 
they would catch it for me. 
