I 



1877.] and a Balucliisldn Fox. 321 



sliould be altered when it involves serious error, that the change is justiiied 

 in the present instance. 



With the skin o£ Ursits Gcdrosinnus, Major Mockler sent to me two 

 well-preserved skins and a perfect skeleton of a singularly small and very grey 

 fox, with the following note : ' I send two skins and a skeleton of the ' Poh' 

 which seems to be a very diminutive fox. They were shot by one of my 

 * sepoys in the hills about 15 miles from Gwadar ; he sat vqy at night for 

 ' them over water, and threw about some dates and fish as bait.' 



The ' Poh' appears to me to be the same as the small Bushire fox, 

 which, in the Zoology of Persia,* I referred, with doubt, after examining a 

 young living specimen at the Zoological Gardens in London, to Canis fmne- 

 licus,-f Riipp. That the present animal must however be distinct from 

 that described by Riippell is, I think, shewn by the dimensions : in Canis 

 famelicus the length of the head is 5 inches 6 lines, (French measure 

 = 5'85 English,) and the whole length from nose to end of tail 2 ft. 10 in. 

 ( about 3 feet English,) of which the tail is 1 ft. 2 in. (1 ft. 3 in. English). 

 Now in the little Baluchistan fox, the skull is only about 3| inches long and 

 the whole length of the skeleton 2 ft. 7 in. of which about 1 ft. 1 in. be- 

 long to the tail. It is not clear whether Riippell in measuring the tail 

 included the hair at the end, if he did, that would account for 2 or 3 in- 

 ches of the length and the present animal would have a proportionally 

 longer tail, but in any case, allowing for the probability that the measure- 

 ments given in liiippell's work are from a stuffed specimen, the difference 

 in the size of the head is quite inconsistent with the identification of the 

 Baluchistan animal with Canis famelicus. The colour moreover in the 

 former is much greyer, and the chesnut dorsal stripe of C. famelicus wanting 

 or very faintly represented. I propose to name the Baluchistan fox from 

 its grey colour. 



YiJLPES CANUS, sp. nov. 

 * Vulpes famelicus ? Riipp.' Eastern Persia, II, p. 41. 



Y parvus, V. famelico affinis sed minor, magis griseus, aique fascia 

 dorsali castanedfere vel omnino careiis, capite nucha tergoqite anteriore in- 

 terdum rufescentihus, dorso nigro-lavato,pilorum ajjicihus alhis, ahdomine 

 alhido, auriculis extus isahellino-griseis, caudd pilis longis all id is supra 

 posticeque nigra terminatis, indutd. Long, tota, pilis ad extremitatem caudce 

 inclusis, circa 33, caudce 15, cranii 3 6, poll. angl. 



The general colour is grey, blackish on the back and the u^^i^er por- 



* Eastern Persia, Vol. II, p. 41. 

 t Kuppell, Atlas, p. 15, Taf. 5. 



