138 Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar. [No. 170. 



These beautiful field rats abound at Neemuch and about Muttra ; as 

 likewise in the sandy tracts north of the city of Bhawulpore, where the 

 country is absolutely riddled with their burrows. I think I have some- 

 where read that they live singly, i. e. that each pair is found separately 

 and widely scattered over the plains ; but this is incorrect, for they 

 form large colonies like rabbits, and live in regular warrens wherever 

 they are located; these colonies are usually situated in the neigh- 

 bourhood of cultivation, which suffers much injury from their depreda- 

 tions. It has also been said that they do not venture out in the day- 



and a half. He remarks, also, that "in the specimen of G. indicus, and that of 

 G. Cuvieri, belonging to the Zoological Society's Museum, there is a considerable 

 difference in the colouring, the latter being paler, and of a much brighter hue than 

 the former; but whether this difference is constant," he adds, "lam not aware." 



Mr. J. E. Gray, in his ' Catalogue of the Mammalia in the British Museum,' identifies 

 Mr. Elliot's G. indicus of S. India (Madr. Journ. No. XXV, p. 211), with the G. 

 indicus of Waterhouse, but applies to it the name Hardwickii ; reserving the appellation 

 indicus for some Bengal specimens presented by the late Major Gen. Hardwicke, 

 while he makes no allusion to G. Cuvieri of Waterhouse, as if regarding this as a third 

 Indian species, not in the British Museum collection. Specimens from S. India, how- 

 ever, presented to this Society by Mr. Walter Elliot, of the Madras C. S., (who also sup- 

 plied the British Museum,) differ in not the slightest respect from at least one Gerbil 

 of Lower Bengal. Of two specimens of the latter, from the vicinity of Berhampore, 

 (for which the Society is indebted to the obliging exertions of my friends Capt. 

 Thomas, 39th N. I., and Dr. Young,) and which accord in their general dimensions, 

 one has the tarse to end of claws fully an inch and three-quarters, the other but 

 an inch and five-eighths ; though the former is the more usual admeasurement in the 

 full grown animal. 



It would seem, however, that we have a second species in Lower Bengal, which I 

 take to be G. Cuvieri of W T aterhouse, and the skull of which corresponds exactly with 

 that of Capt. Hutton's species, No. 24: having the auditory bullae considerably more 

 voluminous than in G. indicus, and the incisive tusks larger and longer, and fronted 

 with much paler enamel. Long ago, as mentioned in Jour. As. Soc XI. 890, I found 

 the remains of one of these animals in a paddy-field, half devoured by some carnivore: 

 of this I preserved the skull, and what I could of the skin, with the tail and limbs; but 

 I unluckily gave the fragment afterwards to some shikarree who was to have endeavoured 

 to procure others, but of whom I never heard again. At that time I had no suspicion 

 of the existence of a second species of Bengal Gerbil, and it is only very recently that 

 I have succeeded in procuring Bengal specimens of the other. 



Captain Hutton's species, No. 24, agrees so very nearly with the common Indian 

 Gerbil, that I can perceive no very satisfactory external distinctions. The tarse, 

 however, to end of claws, of an adult male, barely exceeds an inch and a half long; 

 the general colour is also much paler, both of young and adults ; and the fur generally 

 is longer, especially that growing on the tail: the anterior limbs are either white, or 

 have but a faint tinge of colour; whereas the hue of the back is, I think, always toler- 

 ably deep on the fore-limbs of G. indicus. The surface hue of the upper parts is of 

 that light arenaceous, so very prevalent among the animals of Scinde and Afghanistan, 

 as among those of Egypt and other sandy and stony countries.— Cur. As. Soc. 



