MAMMALS, REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS. 



By N. Annandai^. 



Only eleven species were found in the Chilka Lake of aquatic vertebrates other than 

 fish. A large proportion of these species are distinctly estuarine rather than marine or 

 fluviatile, and the only limnic form is the mud turtle Emyda granosa intermedia. 

 The sub-species of this Chelonian that occurs in the lake is a Peninsular rather than 

 an Indo-Gangetic form, while the snake Chersydrus granulatus , though its geographical 

 range is very extensive, does not occur, so far as I am aware, in the deltas of either the 

 Ganges or the Indus. The sea-snake Hydrophis obscurus is, of course, like other mem- 

 bers of its family, a marine animal, as is also the Cetacean Orcaella brevirostris ; but 

 both have established themselves in estuarine tracts, the latter, indeed, living 

 in rivers hundreds of miles above tidal influence as well as in the sea. 



MAMMALS. 



The only mammals that have any claim to be included in the aquatic fauna of 

 the Chilka Lake are, if we except the domestic buffalo/ the otter Lutra macrodus and 

 the small Cetacean Orcaella brevirostris. We have to thank Mr. Oldfield Thomas a for 

 confirming our identification of these species, both of which are common and have a 

 fairly wide geographical range. 



Order CARNIVORA. 

 Lutra macrodus, Gray. 



1888. Lutra ellioti, Blanford, Faun. Brit. Ind., Mammalia (pt. 1), p. 185, fig. 49. 

 1891. Lutra macrodus, id., ibid. (pt. 2), p. 601. 



An adult male was obtained at Barkul Point in March, 1914. 

 This otter is common in all parts of the lake at which rocks occur. It is pre- 

 sumably to it, and not to L. vulgaris, that McMaster's note quoted by Blanford on 



1 Herds of buffaloes, which are of less massive build and have less heavy horns than those reared in 

 Bengal, often wade or swim far out into the lake ; the island of Nalbano, which is submerged for a part 

 of the year and lies more than a mile off the mainland, is covered in the dry season with their tracks. 



a Mr. Thomas has also been kind enough to name a small collection of terrestrial mammals and bats 

 made incidentally, mostly at Satpara, in the course of our survey. The following species were obtained 

 at Satpara, Felis viverrina, Bennett; Viverricula malaccensis, Gmelin ; Mungos auropunctatus , Hodgson, 

 and Lepus ruficaudatus, Geoffroy. The bat Scotophilus kuhli, Leach, was found in large numbers in 

 small caves among the rocks of the islands at the south end of the lake, while the allied species 5. 

 wroughtoni, Thomas, had taken possession of the bungalow on Barkuda. A pigmy shrew, Pachyurus 

 hodgsoni, Blyth, was taken under dead stems of cacti and screw-pines lying at the edge of the lake at 

 Barkul. Its stomach was full of the sandhoppers (Amphipoda Gammaridea) abuudant in such positions. 



