256 Catalogue of Mammalia inhabiting [No. 172. 



back ; beneath pale-grey. The forehead, nose, temples, and cheeks, 

 are ferruginous. The adult, like some squirrels and rats, is subject to 

 enlargement of the scrotum. In confinement, it is very savage, scarcely 

 tameable. The length of the tail varies from about one-third to little more 

 than one- fourth of the length of the body. It is blackish, or brownish ; 

 the apex whitish. The largest male examined, measured from the apex 

 of the nose to the root of the tail one foot seven and a half inches ; the 

 tail five and a half inches. The female, in size and colours equalling 

 the male, has ten mammae, viz. two axillary, and three inguinal pairs. 



Gen. — Hystrix, Cuvier. 



Hystrix longicauda, Marsden. 



Syn. — Acanthion javanicum, Fred. Cuvier? 

 Hystrix brevispinosus, Schinz.* 

 " Babi Landak" of the Malays of the Peninsula. 

 Hab. — Malayan Peninsula. 



Java, Sumatra, Borneo. 

 Sir Stamford Raffles has pointed out the inaccuracy of Marsden's 

 figure, representing the fore-feet with five toes, instead of with four, and a 

 rudimentary thumb with a flat nail. The figure also has a few mane-like 

 long bristles on the head, whereas the mustachios are situated on the 

 side of the nose, the whiskers below the ear, and one or two bristles 

 above the eye. In colours, this species resembles Hystrix leucurus, 

 Sykes, from which it differs in the absence of the long mane-like bristles 

 of the head and neck. Although single, scattered, thin, flexible spines, 

 upwards of twelve inches in length, occur on the posterior part of the 

 back, the majority of inflexible spines are much shorter than in Hystrix 

 leucurus or H. cristatus, and are either pure white, or with a blackish 

 band in the medial portion. The short, blackish, slightly iridescent 

 spines of the neck, anterior part of the back, the limbs, and abdomen, are 

 generally grooved on the upper surface. The short white pedunculated 

 tubes of the posterior part of the tail are at first closed, terminating in 

 a short spine, which latter wears off, leaving the tubes open. The pubes 



* In " Nachtrage zum Iten. Bande," this species is supposed to be identical with, 

 and substituted for Atherura fasciculata, although a very correct description is given 

 of both. 



