LUTEA. 213 



It would thus appear that in the Himalaya and India there are four distinct 

 species of long-clawed Otters, — viz., L. nair, L. simung {=L. monticola), L. ellioti, 

 and L. aurobrunnea ; and one species distinguished by its short claws, — viz., L. {A.) 

 leptonyx. The Himalayan small-clawed Otter, the Lutra {A.) indigitata of Hodg- 

 son, is seemingly identical with L. leptonyx, Horsfield, but this point cannot be 

 definitely settled until a skull of the former has been compared with Malayan 

 examples of the latter species. I have compared the type of L. {A.) horsfieldii, 

 Gray, with the type of L. {A.) leptonyx, and do not detect any difference 

 either in the skins or skulls by which they might be separated. It may be 

 that the Southern Indian variety of L. {A.) leptonyx may prove to be a distinct 

 species, and that it may extend into Ceylon, because two species apparently occur in 

 that island, the larger of the two being i. nair. In the Malayan peninsula and 

 Sumatra, L. {Aonyx) leptonyx and L. simung are associated with the hirsute-nosed 

 Otter Z. sumatrana, Gray. Z. (A.) leptonyx occurs in Eormosa, judging from the 

 fragment of the skull referred by Dr. Gray to Lutrogale, to Kydrogale, and to 

 Lutra swinhoei, and is apparently distributed over Southern China, and occurs also 

 in Hainan,' the Malayan peninsula, Burma, Assam, Bengal, and the Himalaya. 



Among the Otter skins procured in Yunnan, there are two much more brightly 

 coloured than the generality of skins of L. {A.) leptonyx, but in the absence of 

 skulls, I can throw no further light on them. The species occurs in the hills and 

 vaUeys to the east of Bhamo. 



1 Swinhoe, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 229. 



