322 EODENTIA. 



male, and more especially in the inferior incisors ; while in the female the tipper- 

 incisors are almost white, and the lower front teeth are richly colom'ed. 



It has heen stated that " the species of Hhizomys live on and not under the 

 ground," but this account of their habits was given many years ago, and when no 

 authentic information existed regarding their mode of life or distribution. Now, 

 however, it is established that the members of this group are essentially burro xving 

 animals. Their burrows are well known to the Kakhyens on the borders of Yunnan, 

 who are great experts in unearthing them, digging and smoking them out of their 

 subterranean dwellings for food. I have frequently been shown their burrows on 

 the hill sides, and they were generally narrow tunnels run into the ground on the 

 face of some little escarpment ; but I can say nqthing as to the details of their 

 construction. These rats feed in the eveniag at sundown, and the contents of their 

 stomachs reveal that their food is not confined to the tender shoots of the bamboo, 

 as is generally supposed, but that the young shoots of other vegetable productions, 

 as well as various grains, such as Indian-corn and rice, form considerable elements 

 in their nutrition, and I have known them to eat mice in captivity. 



The young are quiet and inoffensive, but the ferine adults, more especially the 

 males, are very fierce and at once show fight without thinking of retreating, emit- 

 ting a peculiar hissing grunt as they charge. The female also when in company 

 of the young becomes greatly excited when captiu^ed ; and I have seen one in these 

 circumstances, when her own young were placed beside her, rapidly kill them ofi", 

 one after the other, as they fondled her and searched for her teats to suck ; but, on 

 the other hand, in confinement I have knov^n an adult female to be perfectly docile. 



E.HIZOMYS SUMATRENSIS, Rafflcs, 



Mns sumatrensis, EaiHes, Trans. Linn. Soe. Lond. 1832 vol. xiii., p. 258. 

 RTiizornys mmatrensk, Eaffles, Gray, Proe. Zool. Soc. Lond. 18-31, p. 9-5. 

 Nydocleptes clelcan, Temminck, Bijdrag-. Nat. Hist. vol. vii. Tab. i. figs, 1-5, et Monog-i-ai^h Mamm, 



135-41 vol. ii., pp. 4i and 45; Gervais, Voyage de la Bonite, Zool. vol. i. 1841, p. 54, pi. x. 



et xi. iigs. 1-3. 

 SpalaxjavanicHs, Cuvier, Animal Kingdom, 2nd ed. 1829 vol. i., p. 211 ; Schreber's Saug-eth. vol. iii., 



p. ;i67, 1843. 

 liliizoimjs cinereus, M'Clelland, Cat. Journ. Nat. Hist. 1843 vol. ii., p. 457. 

 Rhizomt/s clekan, Temm., Schinz, Syn. Mamm., LS45 vol. ii., pp. 123-24 (in part). 

 lUiizoiiri/s mmatrensis, Raffles, Blyth, Cat. Mamm. As. Soc. Mus. Cal. 1863, p. 132. 



Tliis species was originally described by Raffles from a drawing made by 

 Major Farquhar of a specimen obtained in Malacca, and which was forwarded, with 

 the drawing, to Sir Stamford Eaffles. Dr. M'Clelland was imder the impression 

 that the drawing of Mus sumcdrensis was deposited with the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal at Calcutta, and concluded, because he could not find it there, that it was 

 lost. He also doubted the correctness of the identification of Dr. Gray's animal 

 Mhizomys sumatrensis with that of Sir S. Eaffles, and accordingly re-described the 

 Malayan bamboo-rat or " dekan" under the name of B. cinereus. But Blyth, so 



