334 EODENTIA. 



crest, with the exception of a few longer white-tipped bristly hairs which can be 

 detected on the upper surface of the neck. These hairs are more feebly developed 

 than in a porcupine from Malacca corresponding to the figure and description of 

 Acanthochoerus grotei, Gray/ and which appears to be identical with S. longicauda, 

 Marsden, as pointed out by Dr. Sclater.^ There is also in the same Museum a fresh 

 skin from Darjeeling with a rudimentary crest consisting of a line about three 

 inches long of longer spiny hairs with white tips, the longest hair measuring 2*75 

 inches. The general colour of this skin is dark, rather blackish-brown, the white 

 pectoral band not being very broad. The colour is distributed on the quills in 

 the same way as in H. longicauda. The skull of this Nepal porcupine, however, 

 presents some differences on the skull of S. longicauda from Malacca, chiefly in 

 the form of the nasals. In the latter, the nasals extend backwards only a short 

 way behind the lachrymal, whereas in the former, they extend backwards on a line 

 nearly with the middle of the temporal fossa. The breadth, however, of these 

 bones, opposite the frontal processes of the premaxillae, is the same in both of 

 these skulls, but anteriorly the nasals of the Malacca skull are much broader than 

 those of the Nepal skull. In the latter, these bones also are considerably arched 

 from side to side, whereas in the Malacca skull they are flattened both posteriorly 

 and anteriorly. The skull of the skin from Darjeehng has the short nasals of the 

 Malacca skull, and another skull from the same locality exactly resembles it, but 

 these two Darjeeling skulls are imperfect. They both differ from the Malacca 

 skull in the much less breadth of the muzzle at the base, and they are both remark- 

 ably distinct from the skull of the porcupine sent by Hodgson from Nepal as H. 

 alophous, so much so that I am disposed to believe that there are two species of 

 obscurely crested porcupines in the Himalaya, one an eastern and the other a 

 western form. Hodgson, in his description of S. alophous from Nepal, refers to 

 its long bluff nose, the length of the muzzle being a feature of the skull of the 

 jiorcupine sent by him from Nepal under that name, and which I suppose is identi- 

 cal with the species from Nepal which he first enumerated under the name of 

 H. nepalensis. Notwithstanding the difference in the breadth of their muzzles as 

 compared with the Malacca porcupine II . longicauda^ their distinctness from it 

 is still doubtful, and I cannot determine with the limited materials at my dis- 

 posal that they are specifically identical with these Darjeeling skulls, unless the 

 nasals and facial portion of the skull of porcupines are subject to much greater 

 variation in form than has hitherto been supposed. This view of the question would 

 seem to be suppor ted by the strong external resemblance which they present in the 

 character and coloration of their armature generally. Even H. bengalensis, Blyth, 

 would seem to differ from II. longicauda chiefly in the more marked crest which it 

 developes, as the colour distribution is the same in both; and this remark is also 

 applicable, as far as external characters go, to H. liodgsoni and to the Darjeeling 

 porcupines, and also to 11. yunnanensis. 



' Proc. Zool. See. Loud. 1866, Plate xxxi. p. 306. * Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud. 1871, p. 23. 



