294 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIV. 



wooded hills separating the River from the Kabaw Valley. The 

 country along the river bank under cultivation, with thick mixed 

 jungle inland. 



Kindat. — The Headquarters of the Upper Chindwin District, 

 situated on the East bank. The country is hilly and broken, the 

 jungle thicker near the river than further inland. 



Kin and Yin. — On opposite sides of the River, the former on the 

 West bank, the latter on the East, about 56 miles above Monywa. 

 The country is intermediate between that of the Wet and Dry Zones. 

 On the West bank there is cultivation along the river with hill 

 ranges beyond, covered with scrub jungle intermixed with larger 

 trees. On the East the scrub jungle is thicker along the river, the 

 country further inland being rather flat and much under cultivation. 



Monyv:a. — About 50 miles from the junction of the Chindwin 

 and Irrawaddy, on the East bank, it is the Headquarters of the 

 Lower Chindwin District. • The country is flat and typical of the 

 Dry Zone. 



The total specimens obtained by the Collectors amount to 851, 

 but of these 12 are missing and 2 undeterminable. The balance 

 837, togetner with 35 specimens from this area, already recorded in 

 other Reports, make a total 872, belonging to 76 named forms in 

 39 genera. A considerable number of these names are new but 

 the outstanding interest of this collection is the question of varia- 

 tion and distribution which it raises. So far as I know, never has 

 such ample material, representing the Fauna of a complete river 

 basin been made available for study. The fii'st point that emerges 

 is that the Chindwin is an absolute obstacle to the extension East- 

 wards or Westwards of species of Sciuridoe belonging to its Western 

 and Eastern banks respectively. In a recent paper in this Journal 

 ( p. 225 ) Mr. Thomas and myself have given a table showing 

 the squirrel fauna of the two banks, and it will be noted that, with 

 one exception, the species of the two sides are absolutely distinct. 

 The one exception is Tomentes lolcroides, and Mr. Shortridge states in 

 his notes that this is quite an accident. He writes that lohroides is 

 " very plentiful on the West bank from Kin to Hkamti. It is 

 curious that a few specimens were obtained on the East bank at 

 Homalin. The few obtained were shot immediately round the 

 township and they were the oxAj species obtained anywhere on the 

 East bank of the Chindwin." The type locality of lohroides is 

 Nepal, so that this species has ranged fully 8"' Eastward, even cross- 

 ing the Brahmaputra River, but here its further extension is stop- 

 ped, and in the Lower Chindwin a quite well marked local race, 

 mearsi, has been evolved. 



Take again the species Callosciurus sladeni. It is confined to the 

 country between the two rivers, Irrawaddy and Chindwin, unless 

 further exploration shows it to have succeeded in crossing the 



