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Show 650 MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. [June 23, wild natives did not use them except for food ; and it is not likely that they could have conveyed domestic cattle in the small canoes by which they straggled to Formosa. If they had, we should expect to find some peculiar breed, whereas, as our author tells us, they " were not different from (South-China) domestic cattle." To show that they were derived from the Chinese breed, we should have to believe that the Chinese had earlier communication with the island than their records declare. I take it, then, that the wild Formosan Cow was indigenous to Formosa, and of the same species that ranged throughout South China, from which the present domestic cattle of the south are derived. I have not heard of its being found wild in the present day in China ; and in Formosa the wild race has almost, if not quite, disappeared. In the central mountains they are kept in a semi-wild state, and from there I procured the skulls of an adult male and female and a live bull. The bull I had photographed and now exhibit its portrait (fig. 6, p. 648) ; and the skulls are deposited in the British Museum. The figure shows a better and stronger build than ordinary South-China Cattle possess, and proves the two to be of the same race. The Chinese have done little to improve their breed of cattle ; and you may see this kind in the country from Canton to Ningpo unchanged in form or shape of horns, but, as a rule, a little smaller and more degenerate than the wilder animals from the Formosan mountains. The skull of the bull (figs. 7 & 8) measures 19*5 inches in length; the horns are somewhat conical, measure 8 inches in length each, and stand outwards and backwards. The animal is a rich chestnut-brown with whitish underparts and feet. Its horns and hoofs are black. I have never heard of the Buffalo occurring wild in either China or Formosa. The domestic variety, used as a beast of burden by the Chinese, is short-horned and apparently the same breed as that found in Manilla. EDENTATA. 79. MANIS DALMANNI, Sundevall. (Scaly Ant-eater.) Manis (Pholidotus) dalmanni, Gray, P. Z. S. 1865, p. 366 ; Swinhoe, Zoologist, 1858, p. 6224 ; P. Z. S. 1864, p. 381. In June 1867, at Amoy, I purchased a family of Scaly Anteaters, consisting of the mother and father and three little ones. The old ones had dim watery eyes and were rather slow in their movements, walking on the sides of the hind feet and on the tips of the claws of the fore feet. The young were brighter-eyed and active, running about the room in all directions, standing on their hind legs and assuming a variety of curious positions; but their habit of walking was essentially the same as in the adults. I kept them all alive for some days ; but I never heard them utter any cry, not even a moan. The adult male measured in entire length 33*25 inches; tail 13*5; tip of nose to upper corner of ear 3*1 ; height of ear 1*1 ; across head from ear to ear 2 ; anterior corner of eye to tip of nose 1*9 ; breadth of eye *5 ; breadth of gape *9, of muzzle *7, of nose *5 ; length of sole of hind foot 2*4, greatest breadth 1*4 ; length of middle claw of fore foot 2*1. |