1854.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 729 



The Librarian and the Curator in the Zoological department sub- 

 mitted their usual monthly reports. 



J. "W. Coltile, President. 

 Confirmed 3rd Nov., 1854. 



Report of Curator, Zoological Department, for September, 1854. 



During the last few days, the Society's Museum has been enriched with 

 numerous specimens of interest. 



1. In a box addressed to the Secretary, and marked Moultan, care of 

 Babu Ananda Chandra Basu, Sub-Assistant Surgeon,* have been sent a 

 bottle of petroleum, which has been made over to the Geological depart- 

 ment, and the skin of a small Fox, with skull and several other bones of 

 another individual of the same species. 



This little Fox pertains to a species hitherto undescribed and merely 

 vaguely indicated, which I have long sought to verify. The Hon'ble 

 Mountstuart Elphinstone remarks, of the Foxes of the great Hurriana 

 desert, that these " are less than our [the English] Fox, but somewhat 

 larger than the common one of India : their backs are of the same brown- 

 ish colour with the latter ; but in one part of the desert, their legs and 

 belly up to a certain height, are black, and in another, white. The line 

 between those colours and the brown is so distinctly marked, that the one 

 kind seems as if it had been wading up to the belly in ink, and the other 

 in white-wash." (Account of Cabul, &c. p. 7.) Mr. Walter Elliot would 

 not appear to have discriminated this small Fox of W. India from V. 

 bengalensis j further than by the observation, that — " It is remarkable 

 that though the brush is generally tipped with black, a white one is 

 occasionally found ; while in other parts of India, as in Cutch, the tip is 

 always white." (Madr. Journ. X, 102.) We have little doubt that Mr. 

 Elliot's supposed variety of V. bengalensis with white-tipped tail, refers 

 to the present species : but Mr. Griffith's smaller Fox of Afghanistan 

 (J. A & X, 978,) is different ; and so we now consider Mr. Theobald's 

 small Fox of the Punjab salt range (J. A. S. XXII, 581,) to be, and this 

 may bear the appellation V. pusillus. The small desert Fox of W. India 

 may be designated 



V. leucopus, nobis. It is a typical Vulpes, which V. bengalensis is 

 not; of the size of bengalensis, or smaller than pusillus. The speci- 

 men under examination is an adult female : general colour pale ; the 



* This box was delivered at the Museum by a servant, who stated that his 

 employer had died on the journey down, and that he had accordingly taken charge 

 of his late master's property, including the box here noticed. 



5 c 2 



