286 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 3. 



Some time ago, Mr. Baker asserted in a communication to a sporting 

 periodical his belief that a real Mole existed in his neighbourhood !* He 

 now writes : — " I have since had three specimens of the Mole brought 

 me, but all too far gone for preservation ; they were perfectly black with 

 white belly. Moles they certainly were." It is unfortunate that the skulls 

 were not preserved, or even the entire skeletons in spirit ; but I trust ere 

 long to receive examples from Mr. Baker, as a Talpa from S. India would 

 be a very unexpected discovery ; though, as stated in the sequel, we 

 possess the T. leucura, nobis, from the hilly region bordering on the 

 valley of the Sitang river in British Burma, where co-existing with a 

 Tupaia and a Hylomys !f 



Pteromys petaurista, (Pallas) ; and Sciuroptera fuscocapilla, Jer- 

 don, nobis, J. A. S. XVI, 867. " The common Flying-squirrel [i. e. the 

 Pteromys'] grows much larger than the specimen sent, and they are per- 

 fect plagues in cocoa-nut gardens. The brown ones are mother and young, 

 and were taken from a hollow tree ; they lived some days, but bit those 

 attempting to feed them so savagely, that they were killed, to my great 

 regret." The latter species has hitherto been only known from the descrip- 

 tion cited, of a little more than half-grown specimen in rather abraded 

 pelage, and the condition of that specimen induced the imposition of a not 

 very appropriate name. Unfortunately, the adult now sent is tail-less, 

 though otherwise in good order ; and the tail of the young corresponds 

 with that described formerly. The species most nearly resembles the Sc. 

 fimbriata, Gray, of the Simla and Masuri hills, but has much smaller 

 ears, and the fringe of long hair bordering the hind-foot (from which Sc. 

 eimbriata takes its name) does not exist in the present animal. Fur very 

 dense and soft, that of the upper-parts dusky-ash for the basal two-thirds, 

 the rest a rich brown with black tips : towards the tail it inclines to be 

 woolly ; on the crown it is more fuscous, having whiter tips ; and the para- 

 chute-membrane is mostly blackish above, with a pale edge : lower-parts 



* " Going through the hills, I often come upon a small black velvet-coated 

 creature, dead, with the head bitten off. The paws are precisely like those of the 

 English Mole, with a similar tail ; the whole a finger's length and about an inch 

 thick. It would be curious to know what kills this animal and whether it be 

 a true Mole, as I think it." 



f In a subsequent letter, Mr. Baker remarks — " With the assistance of the hill- 

 people we contrived all kinds of springcs,trap-falls, &c.,in order to catch the smaller 

 animals ; but we could not manage a common Mole-catcher's trap, and I was 

 fairly beaten by a digger whose runs reminded me of those of the Mole at home. 

 He seemed to beat us by his mining, perhaps however by the numerous rami- 

 fications of his burrow." 



