418 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 4. 



have visited them only in the garb of immaturity. The Po marine Skua is 

 there an exceedingly rare winter visitant in its adult dress ; and a recent 

 instance of such a specimen occurring, at the Land's-End, is made the sub- 

 ject of a paper appended to 'the Fortieth Annual Report of the Royal 

 Institution of Cornwall' (1858), which I have just received. 



Major TickelPs subsequent package contains the skin of a Squirrel, which 

 is only our second specimen of — 



Sciurus Berdmorei, nobis, J. A. S. XVIII, 603. This species, accord- 

 ing to Major Tickell, "infests paddy fields. It is in fact more terrestrial 

 than arborial, or at least fully as much so. You will remark its long muzzle 

 and flat head — strongly resembling that of the Tupaia." Nevertheless, 

 though approximating — it cannot range in the peculiar group designated 

 Rhinosciurus by Dr. J. E. Gray ; undescribed by him, but a species from 

 Singapore noticed by the name of Rh. tupaioides, Gray, in p. 195 of his 

 * Catalogue of the Specimens of Mammalia in the British Museum.' It is 

 also doubtfully referred by him to Sc. laticaudatus, Miiller, figured and 

 described by Dr. S. Miiller and Prof. Temminck. We also possess what 

 must doubtless be Dr. Gray's species, from Singapore ; and it can hardly 

 be other than that noticed by Dr. Cantor in J. A. S. XV, 251. Dr. Cantor, 

 however, describes the fur to be " soft and delicate." In our specimen (and 

 I selected it from others like it) the fur is somewhat coarse, and the piles do 

 not lie straight and smooth, but have a harsh and rough appearance. He 

 also describes his Pinang species to " differ from the diagnosis of Sc. lati- 

 caudatus, from the west coast of Borneo, in having neither the first nor 

 the fifth molar of the upper jaw very large. Both are of nearly equal size s 

 and much smaller than the rest." In our Singapore specimen, the first 

 upper molar is unusually large for a Sciurus, but not more than half so 

 large as the last of the series, which latter is of equal size (or very nearly 

 so) with the fourth. The skull exactly agrees with that of Sc. laticau- 

 datus, as figured by Dr. S. Miiller, as does also the size of the first upper 

 molar; and there is the same remarkable elongation and reduced vertical 

 depth of the maxillaries, with their inferior outline exhibiting a straight 

 line from the rodential tusks to the molars; the upper rodent teeth are also 

 singularly small, and the lower elongated and almost straight, — their 

 enamel being of a pale orpiment-yejlow colour : the ear- conch is remark- 

 ably short, bearing a great resemblance to that of Tupaia ; and, as 

 viewed from a little distance, it is curious that there is even the same 

 pale line on the side of the neck as in the Tupaia, but broader and 

 less defined or more diffuse. In this specimen the tips of the caudal hairs 

 are white, imparting a grizzled hoary appearance; and the fur of the upper 

 parts, head and limbs, is much more mixed with black than in Dr. S. 



