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Show 192 MR. O. THOMAS ON THE [Apr. 2, So far as is known at present there are four well-marked species of Otter occurring in the Oriental Region, and these may be briefly distinguished as follows :- A. Muzzle naked. Claws large. Internal lobe of Pj4 small. ("L. vulgaris.''11) B. Muzzle naked. Claws large. Internal lobe of P^4 large. ("L. ellioti:') C. Muzzle hairy. Claws large. Lobe of p 4 small. ("L. sumatrana.") D. Muzzle naked. Claws rudimentary. Size much smaller than in A, B, and C. (" L. leptonyx.") The synonymy of A is happily quite clear, thanks to the labours of Messrs. Anderson and Blanford. It stands as Lutra vulyaris, from which I agree with Mr. Blanford in thinking that L. nair, F. Cuv., and L. indica, Gray, are not separable. To its Indian synonyms should also now be definitely added L. chinensis, Gray, and, as stated below, L. aurobrunnea, Hodgs., and L. nepalensis, Grav* . . .. The history of B is much more difficult. Firstly, it is unquestionably the true "Simung" of Raffles, as evidenced by Raffles's own specimen now in the Museum. The "Barang" of the same author is really species C ; but F. Cuvier, when describing a young specimen of B, still in the Paris Museum, mistook it for the Barang, and therefore called it " Lutra barang," a name which must stand as the first binomial applied to the species. This species B is therefore L. barang of the continental naturalists, Lesson, Fischer, and others, who followed Cuvier, but not the L. barang of English authors, although it should now become so. At the same time it is the L. simung of Lesson, Horsfield, Gray, and others. Later on, specimens of the same species received the names of L. monticola from Hodgson, L. ellioti from Anderson, a name under which Mr. Blanford has placed the species, and L. macrodus from Gray (see below). The range of L. barang extends over the whole Indian Region from the Indus to Ceylon, and from Nepal to Sumatra. Its occurrence in Java has never been confirmed, and F. Cuvier was very possibly mistaken as to the exact locality of the type ; indeed, Lesson in 1827 speaks of the species as having been discovered by Diard and Duvaucel in Sumatra, as though an error in the locality had been discovered in the interval. Species C, the Hairy-nosed Otter of the Malayan part of the region, is the true "Barang" of Raffles, that author's type having come into the British Museum from the collection of the late Dr. Crisp, and is therefore the L. barang of Cantor, Gray, and others, who followed Raffles's determination. In 1865 Dr. Gray elevated the Indian Hairy-nosed Otters to the rank of a genus, and called the 1 The names in brackets are those used in Blanford's work (Faun. Brit. Ind., M a m m . pp. 182-187, 1888), the most recent on the subject. |