Xviii INTEODUCTION. 



Owing to the circumstances already indicated, materials were not collected on 

 a scale sufficient to permit of any extended comparison between the fauna of the 

 area traversed and that of the surrounding countries; but it may be as well to 

 direct attention to certain facts ascertained on the Expeditions. 



A marked feature of the mammalian fauna of the Kakhyen hills, of the 

 hill range to the east of Bham6, and of the hilly country through which the 

 Irawady flows below Bhamo, is the presence of Hylohates hoolook, a species of a 

 thoroughly Indo-Malayan type, associated with Macacus assamensis, which is a 

 nearly allied form to the common Indian monkey, M. rhesus. A short way to the 

 south of the second defile of the Irawady, another hilly tract occurs in which Indo- 

 Malayan species of Semnopithecus are to be found, viz., S. pileatus and S. harbei, 

 the former extending into Tenasserim and into Assam, where it is a prevalent 

 species, occurring at no great altitude, and the latter penetrating the valleys of the 

 Kakhyen mountains to the east, where it is associated with the Indo-Malayan genus 

 Nycticehus, which is represented by N. cinereus, a species which was first described 

 from Siam by M. A. M. -Ed wards. The range of this species also embraces Cachar, 

 Sylhet, the Garo hills, and Assam ; whilst the genus is represented in Arracan and 

 the Chittagong hill tracts by the alHed species N. tarcUgradus. 



Macacus rhesus ^ Audebert, which has hitherto been regarded as essentially 

 characteristic of the fauna of Bengal and Upper India, would appear to have its 

 range extending much further to the east than has hitherto been acknowledged. 

 It occurs in the valleys of the mountain systems to the north and east of Akyab, 

 from whence I have received many living examples from Colonel Sladen. Its 

 eastward distribution, however, is not limited to that region ; but it may be traced 

 across the range of mountains that defines Arracan from Burma ; and, moreover, 

 it would appear to extend as far east as the left bank of the Irawady below 

 Mandalay, the capital of Independent Burma. Another instance of distribution, 

 almost a parallel to the foregoing, is to be found in Herpestes auropimctatus, a 

 species which is profusely distributed over Upper India and Bengal, but which is also 

 very prevalent at Chittagong, ranging into Upper Burma, about Bhamo ; whereas 

 it does not appear to enter Pegu. It occurs also in Cachar, where, as in Upper 

 Burma, it differs only from the individuals found in Bengal in its darker colour. 



In the Kakhyen hills, and in the valley of Sanda, that remarkable Indo-Ma- 

 layan insectivorous genus Tiipaia, which in its external appearance and partiaUy 

 arboreal habits mimics the grizzled squirrels of the Malayan fauna, is not at all 

 uncommon. It is represented by one species which appears to be new, and which 

 I have designated T. chinensis. This genus, however, has a westward distribution 

 as far as the Sikkim Himalaya, where I have observed it at Kurseong, at an eleva- 



