LUTRA. 207 



he described these supposed new species under the names of L. tarayensis, 

 L. monticola, L. indigitata, and i. aurobrunnea. 



In 1843 ^ Dr. Gray regarded Lidra indica as identical with the young animal 

 from China, and placed the former as a synonym of Z. chinensis, and he adopted a 

 similar view with regard to i. tarayensis, which was afterwards shared by Hodgson. 

 Twenty-two years afterwards, however, he altered his opinion, and revived the 

 species L. indica, placing L. tarayensis as a synonym of it, and doubtfully regarded 

 L. nair, P. Cuv., in the same light, and retained the Chinese Otter as a distinct 

 species, acceptiag Hodgson's species L. monticola ; and this course has been followed 

 in his most recent work on the Camivora,^ in which JO. indigitata, Hodg., and liutra 

 aurobrwmea, Hodg., are referred to the genus Aonyx, Dr. Gray having overlooked 

 the circumstance that L. anrohnmnea is a strong-clawed Otter of the type of L. nair, 

 while L. indigitata is apparently an example of L. {Aonyx) leptonyx, Horsfield. 



Hodgson forwarded the types of his various species of Otter to the British 

 Museum, but unfortunately seemingly without names, and along with them a series 

 of Otter skulls the species of which were not stated,^ nor are the skins to which 

 they belonged at present indicated. The only statement on record regarding the 

 characters of the skull of Lutra tarayensis is, that it is much depressed, with the 

 lower incisors ranged nearly in a line, but beyond this brief and vague description 

 none else exists regarding these Nepal skulls. Under these circumstances, there are 

 as yet no reliable materials to enable us to distinguish between the skulls of the two 

 supposed species. Doubtless a skull bearing the name of L. monticola exists in the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, but it is not quite certain that 

 Hodgson presented it as an example of L. monticola. This skull, however, exactly 

 agrees with certain skulls in the British Museum bearing the name of L. monticola, 

 but, as Dr. Gray remarks, and I have personally verified liis observation, the skulls 

 of two distinct species of Otter exist in the National Collection under the name of 

 L. monticola. I have figured (Plate XII, figs. 1 to 3) the type of skull named 

 L. monticola in the Royal CoUege of Surgeons' Museum, not because there is any 

 decisive evidence that it is the skull of the Otter described as L. monticola, but with 

 the purpose of illustratiiig one of the types of skuU distinctive of the large, long- 

 clawed Otters of India and the Himalaya. The other type of skull, and which was 

 one of the forms referred to by Dr. Gray under L. monticola, is very closely allied to 

 the Otter of Europe ; but, as I have said, there are no means at present of identifying 

 one or other of these two types of skuU with any of the skulls of the large Otters 

 described by Hodgson, and, moreover, unfortunately Iris descriptions of the peripheral 

 characters of L. tarayensis and L. monticola are not sufiiciently detailed to permit 

 of the undoubted recognition of these species. 



Two large, long-clawed species of Otter occur in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, 

 one with a skuU resembhng the skull of L. vulgaris, and another with a skull of 



1 List Mamm. E. M. 1843, p. 71. 



2 Cat. Carniv. Mamm. 1869. 



5 His drawings of the species exist as a means of identifying the forms he described, but they are of little use in 

 determinino- which of the skins in the British Museum are referable to L. monticola and which to X. tarayensis. The 

 skulls of the species were not figured. 



