150 



Mammalogy of the Himalayas. 



[July 



Common Sloth Bear (Ursus Inbiatiis) is ou all hands admitted to be 

 confined to the sultry plains of India, the Reech (Ursus thihetanus) 

 succeeds it, as the legitimate representative of the European Bear ( Ursus 

 Arctos)^ and of its American analogue (Ursus americanus)^ in the middle 

 or temperate regions of the hills, to be itself replaced among the frozen 

 peaks of the higher mountains, by the Batji, or Yellow Bear of the 

 Himalayas (Ursus isuhellinns), a species in all respects analogous, in its 

 colour and habitat, as well as in its decidedly carnivorous appetite, to its 

 congener, the Polar or Sea Bear of the North (U?'sus maritimus). 



Various animals, either belonging or closely allied to the Gluttons and 

 Badgers {Gulo and Meles), pre-eminently northern forms, likewise inhabit 

 the elevated ranges of the Himalayas. Am.ong the lower terraces we 

 have the Ratel (Rattelus mellivorous), called Peejoo by the Hindoos, 

 which is common over all the plains of Northern India, and differs from 

 the same animal, as found at the Cape of Good Hope, only in being of a 

 lighter colour on the back. This wide distribution of the Carnivora^ 

 and the common occurrence of the same species in India, and the most 

 remote parts of Africa, will be more particularly mentioned in the follow- 

 ing article : Mr. Hodgson,* under the erroneous impression that the 

 Peejoo, which the Nepalese call Bharsiali, was an unknown animal, and 

 evidently misled by some imperfect or faulty account of its dentition, has 

 recently described it as anew genus under the name of Ursitaxus inauri- 

 ius ; but the species has long been well known in Europe. M. F. Cuvier 

 figured, and accurately described its teeth in the " Dents des Mammi- 

 feres," so long ago as the year 1825 ; and the late Mr. Bennett described 

 and figured the animal itself in 1830, from an Indian specimen then 

 living in the menagerie of the Zoological Societ^-.f The Balloo-soor^ 

 (perhaps more properly Bhalloo-soor f ), Meles collaris^X which M. F. 

 Cuvier likewise elevated to the rank of a generic form, under the name 

 of Arctonyx, upon the faith of a distorted native drawing sent to him by 

 M. Duvaucel, is a real Badger, and was described and figured by the 

 celebrated Bev/ick, at least thirty years before M. Duvaucel's visit to 

 India. It inhabits the northern plains of Hindostan, and probably as- 

 cends the hills, but of this fact I have no certain information. Of the 

 Gluttons, properly so called, the Gulo nepalensis of Mr. Hodgson, which 

 does not differ specifically from the Gulo orientalis of Dr. Horsfield, the 

 only distinction being in a lighter shade of ground colour, inhabits the 



* Res. Asiat. Soc. xix., and Journal of Asiat. Soc, v. 671. 

 t Gard. and Menag.. &c. i. 13. 

 % Penny Cyclopaedia, iii. 264, 



