198 DR. J. SCULLY ON THE MAMMALS OF GILGIT. [Jan. 18, 



Gilgit itself is a village on the banks of the Gilgit river, about 

 25 miles above the point where that stream falls into the Indus near 

 Bmiji. At the point whe-.; Gilgit is situated, the valley is about a 

 couple of miles broad ; and cultivation is there carried on on a flat 

 bit of river-alluvium about 40 feet above the stream ; the elevation 

 of Gilgit is 4890 feet above the sea. The climate of Gilgit is cha- 

 racterized by an extreme annual range of temperature, and by great 

 dryness. In summer the temperature in the shade is sometimes as 

 high as 109° F., and the heat is rendered very oppressive by the 

 glare and radiation from the bare rocky hill-sides which bound the 

 valley ; then in midwinter the cold is severe, the minimum tempe- 

 rature in the shade being often as low as 20° F., while the minimum 

 temperature of radiation occasionally falls to 4° F. From April 

 to September there are occasional light showers ; but the total annual 

 rainfall is little over 3 inches. Snow rarely falls in winter about 

 Gilgit itself, and then very quickly melts ; but of course the snow- 

 fall is very heavy on all the hills about the valley at an elevation of 

 over 7000 feet. 



The following notes on the Mammals of Gilgit are based on a 

 collection of about 200 specimens, which I made during a resi- 

 dence of nineteen months in that country. Examples of all the 

 species here enumerated were secured ; and of most of them I ob- 

 tained large series. Of the thirty-three species in my list, thirty- 

 one occur in the immediate neighbourhood of Gilgit ; the remaining 

 two species, viz. Ovis poll and Arctomys caudatus, inhabit respec- 

 tively the extreme northern and southern limits of the tract included 

 in this paper, Ovis poll being found in Hunza and Arctomys cau- 

 datus at the head of the Astor valley, north of the Dorikun Pass. 



All that has hitherto been published on the Mammals of Gilgit is 

 contained in two notes by Mr. W. T. Blanford, in the Journal of 

 the Asiatic Society of Bengal ^ on some specimens collected by 

 Major Biddulph, and presented by that officer to the Indian Museum 

 in Calcutta. Mr. Blanford in these papers identifies eleven species, 

 which I would reduce to eight or nine. 



I am indebted to Major Biddulph, who has long resided in Gilgit, 

 for some interesting specimens of mammals collected by him there, 

 and for some notes about the Ruminants of the region. I have also 

 to express ray obligations to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, Dr. G. E. Dob- 

 son, and Mr. \V. T. Blanford for assistance in the preparation of 

 this paper. 



CHIROPTERA. 

 1. Rhinolophus HipposiDEROs (Bechstein). 

 Rhinolophus hipposideros, Dobson, Cat. Chir. B. M. 1878, 

 p. 117. 



This small nose-leafed Bat is fairly common in the warm valleys 

 of the Gilgit district during the summer months. Its veitical range 

 seems to be from about 4000 to 6000 feet above sea-level, and it is 

 I Part II. 1877, pp. 323-327, and 1879, pp. 95-98. 



