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Show 1886.] THE HUME COLLECTION. 57 17. MUS RATTUS RUFESCENS, Gr. a. Sambhar. Being now quite convinced of the specific identity of Mus rattus and alexandrinus, I use the Linnean name rattus in preference to that of alexandrinus provisionally employed in my review of the Indian Rats and Mice . 18. HYSTRIX LEUCURA, Sykes. a. d . Sambhar, 27/1/78. 19. LEPUS RUFICAUDATUS, Geof. a-c. Sambhar, 12/77 and 1/78. II. THE MANIPUR COLLECTION. The series from Manipur contains some of the rarest and most interesting of all the mammals presented by Mr. Hume, as was, indeed, to be expected, that country being as yet but little explored, and its mammal fauna being practically unknown. The collection consists of 61 specimens, belonging to 19 species, of which the greater part are decidedly Himalayan in character, the others being either peculiar to Manipur or only otherwise known from Burma. One species and one variety only are new to science, but many are rare and obscure, and all are of the greatest value as filling up an important gap in our knowledge of the fauna of Further India. With regard to the smaller mammals also, collections from this region are of especial value, owing to the large number of Burmese species described by Blyth that still require proper identification. Notably is this the case among the Rodents, and it is with the greatest satisfaction that I am able to identify several of his species in the present and the Tenasserim collections. The most important contributions to our knowledge of the mammal fauna of the Manipur region are :- 1. Blyth's posthumous "List of the Mammalsof Burma "published as an extra part of J. A. S. B. xliii. 18/5, which contains references to all the species then known to inhabit Burma, and in which the greater part of the species represented in Mr. Hume's collection are mentioned; and 2. Dr. Anderson's ' Zoological Results of the two expeditions to Western Yunnan,' 1878, which is less a list of the specimens obtained by the expeditions than a series of monographs of the chief Indian genera of mammals. These monographs, especially those of the Sciuridce, have been of great value to me in working out the Hume collection, and I have made constant references to them throughout. Mr. Hume has not as yet published his intended account of the Birds of Manipur, but when he does, he will no doubt give full particulars about the localities at which the mammals were obtained. 1 P.Z.S. 1881, p. 533. |