192 MR. O. THOMAS ON THE [^V^' 2. 



So far as is known at present there are four well-marked species 

 of Otter occurring in the Oriental Region, and these may be briefly 

 distinguished as follows : — 



A. Muzzle naked. Claws large. Internal lobe of P^* small. 



("L. vulgaris."^) 



B. Muzzle naked. Claws large. Internal lobe of K* large. 



("L. ellioti.") 



C. Muzzle hairy. Claws large. Lobe of p^ small. {" L. suma- 



irajia.") 



D. Muzzle naked. Claws rudimentarv. Size much smaller than 



in A, B, and C. (" L. leptomjx.") 



The synonymy of A is happily quite clear, thanks to the labours 

 of Messrs. Anderson and Blaiiford. It stands as Lvtra vulgaris, 

 from which I agree with Mr. Blanford in tliinking that L. nair, 

 F. Cuv., and L. indica, Gray, are not separable. To its Indian 

 synonyms shoul^d also now he definitely added L. ch'mensis. Gray, 

 and, as stated below, L. aurobrunnea, Hodgs., and L. yiepalensis. 

 Gray. 



The history of B is much more difficult. Firstly, it is unques- 

 tionably the true "Simung" of Raffles, as evidenced by RalHes's 

 own specimen now in the Museum. The "Barang" ot the same 

 author is really species C ; but F. Cuvier, when describing a young 

 specimen of B, still in the Paris Museum, mistook it for the Barang, 

 and therefore called it " Lutra barang," a name which must stand 

 as the first binomial applied to the species. This species B is 

 therefore L. barang of the continental naturalists. Lesson, Fischer, 

 and others, who followed Cuvier, but not the L. barang of English 

 authors, although it should now become so. At the same time it 

 is the i. simung of Lesson, Horsfield, Gray, and others. Later on, 

 specimens of the same species received the names of i. monticola 

 from Hodgson, L. ellioti from Anderson, a name under which Mr. 

 Blanford has placed the species, and L. macrodus from Gray (see 

 below). 



The range of i. barang extends over the whole Indian Region from 

 the Indus to Ceylon, and from Nepal to Sumatra. Its occurrence 

 in Java has never been confirmed, and F. Cuvier was very possibly 

 mistaken as to the exact locality of the type ; indeed. Lesson in 

 1827 speaks of the species as having been discovered by Diard and 

 Duvaucel in Sumatra, as though an error in the locality had been 

 discovered in the interval. 



Species C, the Hairy-nosed Otter of the Malayan part of the 

 region, is the true "Barang" of Raffles, that author's type having 

 come into the British Museum from the collection of the late Dr. 

 Crisp, and is therefore the L. barang of Cantor, Gray, and others, who 

 followed Raffles's determination. In 1865 Dr. Gray elevated the 

 Indian Hairy-nosed Otters to the rank of a genus, and called the 



^ The names in brackets are those used in Blanford's work (Faun. Brit. 

 Ind., Mamm. pp. 182-187, 1888), tlie most recent on the subject. 



