34 W. T. Blanford— Zoology of Sikkim. [No. 1, 



RODENTLA 



Abctomys. 



Marmot holes were abundant around Momay, but I never caught sight 

 of one of the animals. 



I was singularly unsuccessful in procuring specimens of small rodents ; 

 on several occasions I saw a rat-like animal with a short head, probably 

 Neodon Sikkimensis, but I could never capture a specimen. 



? Abvicola sp. In the stream at Momay Samdong, on one occasion 

 I saw a " water rat." This also may possibly have been Neodon, as that 

 animal is said to be found at this elevation (15,000 feet), but it is not known 

 to haunt streams. The animal I saw was swimming some distance beneath 

 the surface, so much so that at the first glance I took it for a fish, but it 

 soon came up and I could distingvdsh its form. It is scarcely necessary to 

 say that my gun happened to be at an unusual distance, and not available. 

 The water coming down from the Kinchinjhao glacier is icy cold, and it 

 would be surprising to find a forest denizen like Neodon Sikkimensis in a 

 glacier stream traversing a treeless region. I think it most probable that 

 the animal I saw was either Arvicola amphibia, which is known to occur in 

 Siberia, or some allied form, perhaps undescribed. It was certainly a much 

 larger animal than Hodgson's Mms liydrophilus, which appears, moreover, to 

 be a tropical or sub-tropical form. 



The absence of squirrels in the pine woods of Northern Sikkim is very 

 remarkable. 



? Leptjs Tibetanus, Waterhouse, P. Z. S., 1841, p. 7, and Nat. Hist. 

 Mam. Vol. II, p. 58. 



L. oiostohis, Hodgs. J. A. S. B., Vol. IX, p. 1186. Hooker, Him. Journal 

 Yol. II, p. 158. 



Hooker mentions the occurrence of slate-coloured hares with white rumps 

 around Cholamu. lake. I turned up two in one day in the Lachen valley 

 near Kongra Lama pass, one of them about five miles on the Sikkim side of 

 the frontier, so that if the Indian fauna is to be limited by the frontier of 

 Tibet, this animal must be included in it. I doubt myself whether any 

 of these Tibetan forms ought to be comprised in the Himalayan fauna; even 

 Ovis NaTiura is only a Tibetan form which strays into the higher ranges across 

 the frontier. 



Until more specimens can be procured and examined, it is impossible to 

 say how far the various Central and Northern Asiatic races of hares, belong- 

 ing to the type of the European Lepus variabilis, should be distinguished. 

 There are — L. variabilis, Pall., identical with the European species found 

 throughout Siberia ; L, tolai, Pall., peculiar to the high steppes of Mongolia 



