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Show 198 DR. J. SCULLY ON THE MAMMALS OF GILGIT. [Jail. 18, Gilgit itself is a village on the banks of the Gilgit river, 25 miles above the point where that stream falls into the Indus near Bunji. At the point where Gilgit is situated, the valley is about a couple of miles broad ; and cultivation is there carried on on a flat bit of river-alluvium about 40 feet above the stream ; the elevation of Gilgit is 4890 feet above the sea. The climate of Gilgit is characterized by an extreme annual range of temperature, and by great dryness. In summer the temperature in the shade is sometimes as high as 109° F., and the heat is rendered very oppressive by the glare and radiation from the bare rocky hill-sides which bound the valley ; then in midwinter the cold is severe, the minimum temperature in the shade being often as low as 20° F., while the minimum temperature of radiation occasionally falls to 4° F. From April to September there are occasional light showers; but the total annual rainfall is little over 3 inches. Snow rarely falls in winter about Gilgit itself, and then very quickly melts; but of course the snowfall is very heavy on all the hills about the valley at an elevation of over 7000 feet. The following notes on the Mammals of Gilgit are based on a collection of about 200 specimens, which I made during a residence of nineteen months in that country. Examples of all the species here enumerated were secured; and of most of them I obtained large series. Of the thirty-three species in my list, thirty-one occur in the immediate neighbourhood of Gilgit; the remaining two species, viz. Ovis poli and Arctomys caudatus, inhabit respectively the extreme northern and southern limits of the tract included in this paper, Ovis poli being found in Hunza and Arctomys caudatus at the head of the Astor valley, north of the Dorikun Pass. All that has hitherto been published on the Mammals of Gilgit is contained in two notes by Mr. W . T. Blanford, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengall, on some specimens collected by Major Biddulph, and presented by that officer to the Indian Museum in Calcutta. Mr. Blanford in these papers identifies eleven species, which I would reduce to eight or nine. I am indebted to Major Biddulph, who has long resided in Gilgit, for some interesting specimens of mammals collected by him there, and for some notes about the Ruminants of the region. I have also to express my obligations to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, Dr. G. E. Dob-son, and Mr. W . T. Blanford for assistance in the preparation of this paper. CHIROPTERA. 1. R H I N O L O P H U S HIPPOSIDEROS (Bechstein). Rhinolophus hipposideros, Dobson, Cat. Chir. B. M. 1878 p. 117. This small nose-leafed Bat is fairly common in the warm valleys of the Gilgit district during the summer months. Its vertical range seems to be from about 4000 to 6000 feet above sea-level, and it is 1 Part II. 1877, pp. 323-327, and 1879, pp. 95-98. |