401 



Description of the Sungndi, Cervus ( Rusa ) frontalis, 

 McClell., a new species of Deer inhabiting the valley of 

 Monet/pore, and brought to notice by Captain C. S. 

 Guthrie, Bengal Engineers. By J. M'Clelland. 

 Plates xiii. and xiv. 



In order to account for so large and interesting a species 

 remaining so long undiscovered, as well as for its range 

 being limited, as far as our information yet extends, almost 

 to the Moneypore valley and its vicinity, it is necessary to 

 consider the general features of the mountain tract on the 

 Eastern Frontier of Bengal.* 



The best, and indeed the only description of this region 

 extant is contained in the Report of the late Captain R. B. 

 Pemberton, on the Eastern Frontier, printed in Calcutta, 

 1835, by order of the Government of India. The region 

 in question consists of mountain chains, which extending 

 from the Himalaya under the lat. 23° N., long. 95° E. 

 separate the great basins of the Irrawadi and the Burram- 

 pooter. It is bounded on the South-west by the plains of 

 Bengal^ on the East by the plains of the Irrawaddi, on the 

 North by those of the Burrampooter and by the Himalaya. 

 It affords several considerable vallies at various elevations 

 of from 1,000 to 2,500 feet above the sea, of which the most 

 considerable is Moneypore. It also presents some still more 

 elevated table lands of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet. 



* Capt. Eld, Journ. Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 417, conceives that there 

 would be great difficulty in rearing the young of this species removed 

 from its native climate, I have therefore availed myself of the scarce 

 and valuable work of Capt. Pemberton, in order to afford as correct 

 a view of the climate in which it lives as possible. Both Capts. 

 Guthrie and Eld, appear to think that the species is strictly confined 

 to the Moneypore valley, but Mr. Henry Inglis informed me that it is 

 found, though rarely, in the Kasyah mountains, (a part of the same 

 chain,) in the winter season, at elevations I think of four or five thou- 

 sand feet. 



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