1836.] Postscript to the account of Ursitaxus. 67 1 



The similarity in the names given by the natives to these two 

 substances (Racsdsa also signifying a giant) has struck me ; although 

 Buchanan describes the Rajmahal formation as deposited from 

 water ; whereas the specimens now sent appear to have undergone 

 the action of fire. 



P. S. Since writing the above 1 have received a letter from the 

 President of the Madras Hindu Literary Society, Cavellt Venkata 

 Lachmi'a, who informs me that there are mounds of scoria of a 

 similar description at Budibetta near Chittledrug , at Budihal, in the 

 Mysore country, and at Bdditippa in Sundah, near the Nugger frontier. 

 Regarding the origin of these ashes he gave no further account save 

 the local traditions ; viz. that some were the ashes of religious sacri- 

 fices performed by the holy Rishis in their hermitages, and some the 

 funeral piles of remarkable heroes and other noted persons. 



Biidigunta, the name of the place whence the specimens sent you 

 were procured, signifies in the Canarese language the *' hill of ashes." 



VIII. — Postscript to the account of Ursitaxus printed in the 19th 

 Vol. of Researches As. Soc. By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 

 I have just procured another very perfect skull of the Ursitax, 

 which exhibits the same formula of molar dentition as that described 



4.4 



in my paper or -^p 



It is the cranium of a mature subject, but less old than the preced- 

 ing, and I am thus enabled to correct that portion of the generic 

 character which ascribes an almost ursine flatness to the crowns of 

 the molar teeth. 



In the present subject the coronal processes of those teeth are 

 distinctly salient, with an obtusely conical form. A similar process 

 rises from the inner heel of the great carnivorous tooth, above ; nor 

 is the transverse tubercular, next to it, wholly without symptoms of 

 such a process. 



The generic character should be corrected as follows : 



4.4 



' Cheek teeth •—, strong, broad, low, and furnished on the crowns 

 with obtusely-conical processes : the tubercular of the upper jaw, 

 transverse, narrow, sub-parallelogramic, smaller than the carnivorous 

 tooth, and essentially a grinder : no tubercular in the lower jaw,' et 

 est. sicut prius scripta. 



It has been suggested to me that our animal is a Glutton or a Ratel. 

 But the dentition of the former, according to the Regne animal, is 



5.5 4.4 



£g- ; of the latter is -jj- ; and I possess several species of both con- 



