930 OLDFIELD THOMAS 
This species, in its grey-backed state, appears to lead, almost 
without a break, into the next form, for which I only provi- 
sionally retain the name it has received from D." Anderson. 
82. Seiurus gordoni, ANDERS. 
23 specimens. Bhamò, June to August, 1885 and 1886. 
These 23 individuals are quite similar to one another, but 
all were taken at the same season and place, so that their 
mutual resemblance does not prove any very wide constancy 
of colouration. D." Anderson moreover remarks that the belly 
colour, usually, and in all these examples, bright red, ‘ occa- 
sionally becomes pure yellowish white, and sometimes yellow, ” 
a variation that has a most important bearing on the relationship 
of this form to 8. quinquestriatus. 
83. Seiurus quinquestriatus, ANDERS. 
a-g. 4 § 3 2, Teinzò, on the Mulé Ciaung, N. E. of Bhamo; May, 1886. 
These specimens precisely agree with Dr. Anderson’s descrip- 
tion and figure, and only differ among themselves in that one 
of them has a faint tinge of rufous in the usually pure white 
of the belly, and that in some of them the central belly stripe, 
black in the most typical examples, is grizzled with grey. Since 
however the colour of the belly and of its longitudinal bands 
are the very points that distinguish S. quinquestriatus from 
S. gordoni, their tendency to variation, combined with the cor- 
responding inconstancy in S. gordoni already noted, makes the 
distinction of the two forms by no means so absolute as would 
naturally be supposed at first sight. In fact, without daring in 
the present state of our knowledge definitely to abandon 
S. quinquestriatus as a distinct species I am nevertheless most 
strongly impressed with its essential identity with S. gordonz, 
and through that with S. atrodorsalis and its many allies. The 
change in the general belly colour from red to white is paral- 
leled in many other squirrels, while the deepening of the grey 
belly lines of S. gordoni into the black ones of S. quinquestriatus, 
a deepening which shows up in brighter contrast the white 
