1900.] ON A PIECE OF SKIN FBOM PATAGONIA. 379 



Colour. Kedah specimen, S , uniform dark brown, except end 

 of tail which is buff. Naked skin of feet pink. 



This specimen had sixteen rows of scales round the middle of 

 its body, and measured : — 



ft. in. mm. 



Length, head and body 1 8 508 



„ tail 1 3| 394 



ear | 19 



,, hind foot, without claws . . 3 76 



Distribution. Sylhet to Burma, Siam, Cochinchiua, Cambodia, 

 Malay Peninsula (Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Johore, 

 Singapore), Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes. 



Popular beliefs. It is not surprising that strange stories are 

 related about an animal like the Manis. One that I was told in 

 Kedah is worth putting on record. It, says the Malays, is very 

 clever catching ants ; putting all its scales at right angles to its 

 body, it lies perfectly motionless on the grouud : ants, thinking it 

 dead, swarm over it by thousands, then it suldenly shuts down 

 all its scales, thus imprisoning the ants, and rushes into a pond: 

 under water it again opens its scales, the ants float to the surface, 

 and the wily Manis licks them up comfortably. 



2. On a remarkable Piece of Skin from Cueva Eberhardt, 

 Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia. By Dr. Einar Lonnberg, 

 University of Upsala. 1 



[Received March 6, 1000.] 



Last year Mr. Erland Nordenskjold visited Last Hope Inlet, 

 Patagonia, to make further explorations in the large caveru, Cueva 

 Eberhardt, which has become famous for the interesting remains 

 of animals found in the deposits covering its floor. He has 

 recently published the results of his researches in a memoir read 

 before the Eoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences " ; but in addition 

 to the remains of which he treats there is also a remarkable piece 

 of skin of an unknown animal, which he has kindly entrusted to 

 me for description. This specimen was found by Mr. Nordenskjold 

 in the oldest stratum on the floor of the cavern, which is chiefly 

 formed of the excrement of the giant-sloth Grypotheriurn, and is 

 sometimes covered with a thin layer of sulphate of magnesia 30 to 

 50 mm. in thickness. The discoverer informs me that it was fouud 

 close to a scapula, a claw, and some other bones of Grypotherium, 

 and also near a tooth of Felis onca. It is therefore probable that 

 the animal to which the skin belonged was contemporaneous with 

 Grypotherium and the other members of the Pampean fauna. 



Mr. Nonienskjold informs me that when the piece of skin was 



1 Communicated by A. Smith Woodward, F.Z.S. 



2 E. Nordenskjold, " Iakttagelser och Fynd i Grottor vid Ultima Esperanza i 

 sydvestra Patagonien," K. Vatensk.-Akad 'ilandl. vol. xxxiii. no. 3 (1900). 



