1886.] THE HUME COLLECTION. 57 



17. MuS RATTUS RUFESCENS, Gr. 



a. Sambhar, 

 Being now quite convinced of the specific identity of Mus rattus 

 and alexandrinus, I use the Linnean name rattus in preference to 

 that of alexandrinus provisionally employed in my review of the 

 Indian Rats and Mice '. 



18. Hystrix leucura, Sykes. 



a. 6 • Sambhar, 27/1/78. 



19. Lepus ruficaudatus, Geof. 



a-c. Sambhar, 12/77 and 1/78. 



II. The Manipur Collection. 



The series from Manipur contains some of the rarest and most 

 interesting of all the mammals presented by Mr. Hume, as was, 

 indeed, to be expected, that country being as yet but little explored, 

 and its mammal fauna being practically unknown. The collection 

 consists of 61 specimens, belonging to 19 species, of which the greater 

 part are decidedly Himalayan in character, the others being either 

 peculiar to Manipur or only otherwise known from Burma. One 

 species and one variety only are new to science, but many are rare 

 and obscure, and all are of the greatest value as filling up an impor- 

 tant gap in our knowledge of the fauna of Further India. 



With regard to the smaller mammals also, collections from this 

 region are of especial value, owing to the large number of Burmese 

 species described by Blyth that still require proper identification. 

 Notably is this the case among the Rodents, and it is with the 

 greatest satisfaction that I am able to identify several of his species 

 in the present and the Tenasserim collections. 



The most important contributions to our knowledge of the 

 mammal fauna of the Manipur region are : — 



1. Blyth's posthumous "List of the Mammalsof Burma "published 

 as an extra part of J. A. S. B. xliii. 187.5, which contains references 

 to all the species then known to inhabit Burma, and in which the 

 greater part of the species represented in Mr. Hume's collection are 

 mentioned ; and 



2. Dr. Anderson's ' Zoological Results of the two expeditions to 

 Western Tunnan,' 1878, which is less a list of the specimens obtained 

 by the expeditions than a series of monographs of the chief Indian 

 genera of mammals. These monographs, especially those of the 

 SciuridcB, have been of great value to me in working out the Hume 

 collection, and I have made constant references to them throughout. 



Mr. Hume has not as yet published his intended account of the 

 Birds of Manipur, but when he does, he will no doubt give full 

 particulars about the locahties at which the mammals were obtained. 



» P.Z.S. 1881, p. 533. 



