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Show 1871.J DR. J. ANDERSON ON RODENTS FROM YARKAND. 561 kand, where they were obtained by the members of the Expedition that lately visited that country. As no heights are given on the notes attached to the specimens, I can say nothing about the elevation at which they were found. The specimens in this Museum, prior to the reception of these, were from Tibet and the north of Sikkim. The specimen from the former locality was presented by Mr. Hodgson, and the one from the latter was received alive in Calcutta. There is no evidence, however, that it was found m Sikkim; for it had in all probability been brought to Darjeeling for sale from the high and dry country to the north-east, in the way the W a h (Ailurus fulgens) is at the present day. Hodgson, in his first description of the short-tailed Marmot, gives the Himalayah, Kachar (rarely), and the sandy plains of Tibet as its habitat; but in his contribution to our knowledge of the two species, published in 1843, restricts its distribution to Tibet, and gives the former localities, with the exception of the last-named, Tibet, as the habitat of his long-tailed species, A. hemachalanus, which, he states, is also found in the immediate neighbourhood of the snows in the Bhote pergannahs. From these facts it appears that at first he had given a wrong account of the distribution of A. himalayanus (potius tibetanus hodie), which he was enabled to rectify by his more enlarged experience and by the recognition of two distinct species with a Tibetan and Himalayan dispersion. Jerdon remarks that A. bobac crosses over the snowy Himalayas only for a short distance, but is found on the Indian side along the whole length of the range from Kashmir to Sikkim, though less abundantly than on the Tibet side, and never at a lower elevation than 12,000 feet, often up to 16,000 feet. Dr. Stoliczka observes that it ascends to 17,800 feet on the hill-slopes of Ladak, and that it constructs its very deep burrows mostly on the sides of the valleys near the bottom. ARCTOMYS HEMACHALANUS. Arctomys hemachalanus, Hodgs. Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xii. p. 410. Arctomys bobac, Adams, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1858, p. 521 ; Blyth (in part.), Cat. M a m m . As. Soc. Mus. pp. 108, 109; Stoliczka, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 1865, xxxiv. p. 111. Length 22 inches from tip of nose to vent; tail 10^ inches, exclusively of the hair, nearly half the length of the body and head. Rufous ochreous *; tip of hairs above washed with black, which is most intense on the back from the occiput to the lumbar region; pale yellow on the shoulders, which have few, if any, black-tipped hairs, and also on the sides, which are nearly free from them. Chin, throat, belly, fore legs, and inside of front of lower limbs deep rusty red ; the outside of thighs pale rufous yellow, with a few black-tipped hairs ; greyish hairs around the lips ; cheeks washed with blackish ; a large deep-black spot on the upper surface of the nose; the rest of the front of the face rufous yellow. Tail black, washed more or less with yellowish grey, the last four inches black. The * The specimen from which this description was taken was killed on the 22nd of June. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1871, No. XXXVI. |
