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Show 638 MK. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. [JlIUC 23, 69. HYSTRIX SUBCRISTATA, sp. nov. (Subcrested Porcupine.) Hystrix, sp., Swinhoe, P. Z. S. 1864, p. 378. I had often heard of a Porcupine occurring both at Swatow (province Kwangtung) and at Foochow (province Fokien), and knew that it was an animal well known to the Chinese as the " Bristly Pig" (Court dialect, Haochoo; Amoy, Ho-te) ; but it was not till May 1867 that I procured specimens. One of these was brought to me alive, and I shipped it for the Society ; but it got overfed by the passengers, and died before the vessel left the port. The other specimen, a skin with skull, I have brought home. The skull is very similar in form to the two of H. hodgsoni, Gray, in the British Museum, and is like in form of teeth. It is the skull of an old animal, whereas the Museum specimens have open sutures, and show juvenility. It is larger, and exhibits differences of detail; but it is questionable whether these may not be attributable to advanced age. Judging from the skull alone, one might be inclined to identify our animal with the Nepaul species; but the external form of the Chinese Porcupine displays a conspicuous occipital crest, which is entirely absent in the other. Hodgson and other zoologists lay great stress on the want of this crest (see Water-house, Mammalia, iii. 461) ; and the mounted skins in the Museum, both more than two-thirds the size of m y specimens, bear no trace of it. M y specimens, on the contrary, differing in age, inter se, have each a crest. I follow, therefore, Dr. J. E. Gray's advice, and separate the Chinese animal from its Nepaulese ally, though the question as to its distinctness will not be satisfactorily determined until we ascertain either that the Himalayan Porcupine has the crest when fully adult, or that the Chinese Porcupine is destitute of it in its younger state. The following is a description from the living animal, corrected by help of the skin :- Snout to root of tail about 28 inches; tail about 5, covered at its base by the protruding quills of the rump, and carrying a bunch of short white truncated quills on pedicles on the apical third of its length. Palm to end of nails 3 inches; sole to end of nails 4. Head brown, with rather bare brownish flesh-coloured cheeks. Iris deep brown. A iew short scattered hairs round eyes. Ears oval, flesh-brown, sparsely covered with whitish hairs. Nose deep brown. Muzzle and lips with short brown hairs. General colour light purplish black, much deeper on the legs; white on the long hairs of hind neck, with a crescent-shaped mark of the same colour across breast. Head, legs, and belly clothed with short stiff bristles; neck, anterior half of back, and sides with short furrowed black spines from 1 to 3 or more inches long, ending in sharp points, thicker on the back, and tipped with yellowish. From the occiput spring long stiff black bristles, white on the apical half; and along the hind neck runs a bushy ridge of the same from 2 to 5 inches long, black, with more or less white. Hind part of back with long, thick, rigid quills, the longest about 9 inches, mostly white at base, with more or less white at tip ; their central portions black, without |
