1 70 Report on the Mammalia and more remarkable [No. 2. 



and is rather larger than the two described by Mr. Waterhouse ; 

 measuring h\ in. in total length : No. 2 (from Asam) is 5 in. long : 

 and No. 3 is that of a young animal, in which the naso-frontal sutures 

 form each a straight line, meeting its opposite at an obtuse angle 

 posteriorly ; this, however, is merely due to immaturity, the forehead 

 not having commenced to bulge as in the adult animal. H. Hodg- 

 sonii and H. longicauda are nearly affined species, but exhibit well 

 marked distinctions in the cranium : and externally they are most 

 readily characterized apart by the latter having a strongly marked 

 white demi-collar, proceeding upward from the throat, which either 

 does not occur or is barely indicated in the other, and by its body 

 spines (i. e. spinous bristles, as distinct from the quills,) terminating 

 in sharp and rigid points, not flexible and setaceous tips as in H. 

 Hodgsonii. 



The common Bengal Porcupine (and of Asam ?, Sylhet, and Arakan, 

 rare near Calcutta), — H. bengalensis, nobis, — resembles the two last 

 mentioned in size and general character ;* and like them it does not pos- 

 sess the two great lateral masses of very long, slender and flexible quills, 

 impending and concealing the much shorter, thick,rigid and acutely point- 

 ed quills which constitute the armature of the animal : but it has only a 

 very few long and slender quills, gradually thickening in the basal half 

 and attenuating much in the terminal half, intermixed with the ordinary 

 or weapon-quills towards the front and at the sides. The latter are much 

 longer and thicker than in the two crestless species ; and the body-spines 

 are still flatter and more strongly grooved, and terminate towards the 

 neck in slight setse, towards the quills in rigid points. There is a distinct 

 but small thin crest, (not dense and massive, as in the two large species,) 

 the longest bristles of which measure 5 or 6 in., and are tipped with 

 white for the terminal third : and the white demi-collar is as strongly 

 marked as in H. longicauda. General colour as in H. Hodgsonii ; 

 the quills generally having the basal half white, the rest black, most of 

 them with a white tip more or less developed : the few long and flexible 



* Or it may attain to a larger size, though not nearly to the magnitude of 

 H. crist ata and H. hirsutirostris. Since the above descriptions were writ- 

 ten, we have seen, in the Barrackpore menagerie, fine living examples of H. hir- 

 sutirostris, H. bengalensis, and the Ath erur a inhabiting the Tippera and 

 Khasya hills, which latter is well figured and described by Buchanan Hamilton. 



