346 On the Mammalia of Nepal. [Aug. 



Family Ruminantia. 

 The great forest of Nepal is the nursing mother of numberless 

 animals of the genus Cervus, which, in the rainy and cold months, 

 when cover abounds, thence issue into the Tarai ; and in the hot 

 months, when fire is effectually employed to clear the Tarai, and 

 forest too in a less degree, of grass and underwood, retreat into the 

 recesses of the lower hills. 



Besides the Chittra, the Lagna or Pada, and the Sugoriah of the 

 plains of Hindustan, (the spotted Axis, the spotted and the brown 

 Porcine Axis, respectively,) to the lower region of Nepal belong, the 

 Barah Sinha, a splendid variety of the common stag or Cervus 

 Elephus ; three species of the Rusa group of Major Smith, denominated 

 collectively Jarai by the Nepalese, and contradistinguished by the 

 epithets Phusro, Rato, and Kalo, or hoary, red, and black ; of which 

 the first is the Cervus Hippelaphus of Cuvier ; the second, possibly, 

 Major Smith's C. Equinus ; and the last, undescribed, the Bahraiya, 

 a new osculant species, serving with C. fVallichii, to connect the 

 Elaphine and Rusan groups of Smith ; and, lastly, a new species of 

 Muntjac described by me under the local name of Ratwa. 



There is no deer proper to the central region but the Ratwa, 

 which, though it occur in the hills of the southern division, and in 

 the lowest valleys of the Kachar, is the more peculiar inhabitant of 

 the middle tract. I can make nothing of Sir W. Ouseley's musk deer 

 of Nepal, referred by Smith to the Muntjacs, and named C. Mos~ 

 chatus. 



The Rato Jarai is sometimes found in the mountains ; but it, 

 and the other two species of Jarai, belong decidedly to the lower 

 region. 



In the Kachar there is no species of Cervus ; the Nepal deer or 

 C. Wallichii being, I am pretty sure, trans-Himalayan ; and the 

 Ratwa being, as already hinted, a vagrant there. 



Of Antelopes, the Ghoral (A. Ghoral, Hardwicke) belongs exclu- 

 sively to the northern and central divisions ; the Thar (A. Thar, 

 mihi) properly to the central, though he occurs also in the northern 

 and southern regions ; and the four-horned and black antelopes, {A. 

 Chikara and A. Cervicapra,) exclusively to the lower region. The 

 former keeps to the open plains of the Tarai ; the latter, to the cover 

 of the saul forest. And there are no more antelopes in Nepal ; for 

 the Chiru (A. Hodgsonii, Abel,) never passes the Himalaya, nor even 

 approaches that stupendous chain of mountains ; it being confined to 

 the open plains of north-eastern Tibet. The Thar, much more 



