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Show 1897.] BLUE BEAR OF TIBET. 413 head and shoulders, darker on the back, where the hairs are black with tawny tips, and black on the limbs. The head is tawny, much of the same colour as Ursus Isabellinus, a little darker and browner under the eyes and on the forehead: the ears have tufts of long hair mixed tawny and black. Behind the head the neck is rather darker, but on the upper part of the breast there is a broad pale tawny crescentic band, with the upper terminations prolonged upwards, in front of the shoulder, almost to the back, precisely as in U. isabellinus The upper and hinder parts of the shoulder in U. prulnosus are covered with tawny hairs about 3 | to 4 inches long, whilst the interscapulary region, like the rest of the back, is clothed with black hairs, fulvous at the tips. The hair is moderately fine and about 3 inches long on the back. Apparently the animal when killed was about to lose its long winter coat, for the hair is much felted and matted together in places, and a short fine tawny hair is seen to be growing beneath. The hoary appearance given to the fur by the fulvous tips is extremely characteristic, but it may very possibly be less conspicuous at some seasons. " The claws are pale in colour, strong and moderately curved, the first (and longest) claw on the fore foot measuring 2'2 inches in a straight line from insertion to tip, and 2*75 round the curve ; the corresponding measurements of the first hind claw are 1*3 and 1*4 inches. " The animal is evidently very old, several of the premolars have been lost and the alveoli obliterated ; the molars are much worn. As already mentioned, the size of the teeth, and especially of the molars, is unusually large; the canines appear very little larger than in U. lablatus. The posterior molar in the upper jaw is wanting on one side and imperfect on the other, it must be nearly 1\ inches long and its anterior portion is 0*88 broad ; the antepenultimate ' (first true molar) measures 0*9 inch in length by 0*72, the tooth anterior to this, or hindmost premolar, is 0'62. The three together when perfect must have measured nearly 3 inches in length." The writer also describes a large skull which he thinks may very probably belong to the same species, but as this identification is not certain, I prefer not to take the specimen into consideration. In a later work 2 M r . Blanford suggests that U. prulnosus may not be specifically distinct from U. arctus, of which U. Isabellinus is regarded merely as a local race. Still later M r . W . L. Sclater 3 considers that U. prulnosus is not separable from U. Isabellinus, although the latter is separated from U. arctus. H e remarks that " in the Eastern Thibetan variety (U. prulnosus) the hair is blackish or bluish, but it is hardly worthy of separation even as a geographical race." In the year 1892 the Natural History Museum received a skin 1 The author obviously means penultimate. a Fauna of Brit. India, Mamm. p. 194 (1888). 3 Oat. Mamm. Ind. Mus. pt, ii. p. 302 (1891). |