1851.] species of Birds inhabiting Ceylon. 169 



mon house Rat. They do, however, as Buchanan Hamilton remarks, 

 visit out-houses and similar places by night ; but pass the day on trees, 

 chiefly cocoa-nuts (being very destructive to the young fruit), and 

 bamboos. 



8. (?) M. kandianus, Kelaart, n. s. Very like the preceding species, 

 but the fur softer and of finer texture, and less rufescent in colour. 

 Whiskers very long, fine, and black. Peculiar to the mountains, and 

 we strongly suspect it to be only a mountain variety of M. rufescens ; 

 but require to examine more perfect specimens, and to compare the 

 crania and dentition, before coming to a final decision. M. niviventer, 

 Hodgson, would seem to be affined. 



Other species of Mus are enumerated by Dr. Kelaart, as inhabitants 

 of Ceylon ; but they require further examination. 



Hystrtcid^e. A young Cinghalese Porcupine sent alive by Mr. 

 Layard, and since mounted in the Society's museum, is evidently of a 

 new species, most nearly affined to the common but undescribed Por- 

 cupine of Bengal. The last and most satisfactory authority upon 

 the species of Porcupine is Mr. Waterhouse's * Natural History of the 

 Mammalia/ Vol. 2. This author reduces the known species of Hys- 

 trix as now limited (including Acanthion, F. Cuv.,) to four ; viz. two 

 crested species of large size, the European and N. African H. cristata, 

 L., and the Asiatic H. hirsutirostris, Brandt (v. leucura, Sykes) ; 

 and two crestless species of much smaller size, the sub-Himalayan 

 H. Hodgsonii, Gray (v. alophus, Hodgson), and H. longicauda, 

 Marsden (v. Acanthion javanicum, F. Cuv.), of the Malayan peninsula 

 and archipelago. Of these, the Society's museum contains two skulls, 

 a stuffed head, ditto very young animal, and a flat skin (deprived of 

 the crest) of a half-grown example, of H. hirsutirostris ; flat skins 

 of old and young of H. Hodgsonii ; and a stuffed specimen of H. 

 longicauda : also three skulls (one of them from Asam), agreeing 

 with Mr. Waterhouse's description and figures of the skull of H. 

 Hodgsonii ; but on two of thein the names " Hystrix cristata' and 

 " Crested Porcupine" are written by one of our predecessors, so that 

 they perhaps belong to the small crested species of Bengal, and not to 

 the sub-Himalayan crestless Porcupine.* No. 1 is that of an old animal, 



* In Mr. Walker's list of the mammalia of Asam (Calc. Journ. Nat. Hist. Ill, 

 267), the only Porcupine mentioned is H. cristata, which should at least indi- 

 cate the existence of one of the crested species in that province. 



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