316 W. T. Blaiiford — On two Asiatic Bears [No. 4, 



ing, of course, " Mamhs" like the mother. Probably the folk lore of 

 Baluchistan would furnish many other wonderful stories of the animal, 

 if enquiry were made. 



Quite recently my friend Major Mockler, the Political Agent at Gwa- 

 dar on the Makran coast, who has very kindly been trying, for some time 

 past, to procure this and other animals for me, obtained a skin from a 

 Baluch chief, Mir Wajedad of Tiimp, about 70 miles north of Gwadar. 

 This skin, which I received a few da3^s since, had unfortunately remained 

 for two months at Gwadar during Major Mockler's absence and without 

 his knowing of its arrival, and much of the hair has consequently come off, 

 but still there is abundance left to shew the characters of the fur. The 

 skull is wanting, but the feet have been joartly preserved. 



From the circumstance that I was assured by all my native informants 

 both in Sind and Baluchistan that the " Mamh" was a black bear, I was 

 rather inclined to anticipate that it might prove to be the common Indian 

 ^oi\i\)Q2(,v Ursi(,s (Melursus) labiatiis. We have no precise information as 

 to the bears of Afghanistan, but JJrsus isabellinus of the Western Hima- 

 layas and TJ. syriacus which inhabits Persia are both pale coloured animals, 

 and although the Indian bear is not, so far as I am aware, known to occur 

 within the Indus valley, or the desert tracts which bound that valley to the 

 eastward, (it is mentioned hj Stoliczka as a very rare straggler into the 

 easternmost j)art of Cutch,) still it might of course be found in the Balu- 

 chistan hills. A single glance at the skin sent by Major Mockler is how- 

 ever sufficient to shew that it belongs to a very different animal from the 

 sloth bear of India. The latter has long coarse black hair and very long 

 claws ; in the Baluchistan skin the hair is brown, rather short, and moder- 

 ately fine, and the claws are unusually small. 



It is impossible to identify the Sind and Baluchistan animal with the 

 black JJrsus torquatus (commonly but most improperly known as TI. tihe- 

 tanus) and the only remaining bears of western and central Asia are TI. 

 arctos, TI. syriacus and TI. isahellinus. It is still a moot point amongst 

 naturalists how far these forms are distinguishable, but they all agree in 

 being large bears, considerably exceeding TI. lahiatus in dimensions, whilst 

 the skin from Baluchistan entirely bears out the statement made by 

 various observers, and confirmed by all the information which I have 

 been able to procure in Sind, that the "Mamh" is an exceptionally small 

 form of the genus. Even if the present sjoecimen be immature, the tex- 

 ture of the fur appears harsher, and the hairs shorter than in TI. arctos and its 

 allies, whilst the colour distinguishes the species from TJ. torquatus. There 

 can I think be but little doubt that the present animal is unnamed ; it may 

 be an exceptionally small race of TI. arctos, but even in this case the 

 difference is so great as to entitle the Baluchistan animal to a distinctive 



