OCR Text |
Show 1 9 0 5 .] MAMMALS AND BIRDS FROM JAPAN. 183 M u s t e l a m e l a m p u s b e d f o r d i Thos.* Thos. Abstr. P. Z. S. No. 21, p. 10, June 13, 1905. Size as in true melampus, or slightly larger. General colour above, in winter pelage, near " isabella," but rather darker and with an olivaceous tone, nearer to the yellowish brown of M. m. tsuensis t than to the golden yellow of melampus. Wool-hairs of back brown at base, then dark yellowish. Long hairs brown. Muzzle dark chocolate-brown, passing backwards, on the crown, into silvery greyish. Ears whitish both externally and internally. Nape more yellow than back. Sides of neck brilliantly yellow (i£ deep chrome "), sharply contrasted with the upper colour along a line halfway up the neck, and in continuation with the deep orange ochraceous of the chest-patcli. Lips pale brown, lighter than the top of the muzzle ; sharply defined from the whitish interramia, which in turn passes without line of demarcation into the orange of the throat and chest. Belly brown, not unlike back, the throat-patcli extending to the sternum and continued in some specimens as an irregular line of spots to the inguinal region. Limbs deep brownish black from halfway down the forearms and on the hind feet. Tail pale brown for the greater part of its length, the underfur dull yellowish as on the body ; tip sharply contrasted yellowish or cream-colour, forming a conspicuous terminal tuft. Skull as in tsuensis, slightly larger than in melampus so far as material for comparison existed. Dimensions of the type, measured in the flesh :-Head and body 425 mm. ; tail 220 ; hind foot 87 ; ear 40. Skull-greatest length 84 ; basal length 75 ; zygomatic breadth 48 ; interorbital breadth 20 ; mastoid breadth 37'5 ; palatal length 42 ; length of upper p4 on outer edge 9‘5. IT ah. Washikaguchi, Nara District, E. of Osaka, Southern Central Hondo, Japan. Type. Adult male. B.M. No. 5.5.30.3. Original number 123. Collected 13 January 1905 by Malcolm P. Anderson, and presented by the Duke of Bedford. Four specimens. This very handsome Marten is conspicuously different from the yellowish M. melampus, and is curiously more similar in o-eneral colour to the M. m. tsuensis of the Tsu-shima Islands. From both, however, it is readily distinguished by its brilliant yellowish throat and neck patches and its contrasted tail-tip. Mr. R. I. Pocock, F.L.S., the Superintendent of the Gardens, exhibited a female specimen of the Jamaican Scorpion, Centrurus * [The complete account of the new species described in this communication appears here ; but since the name and preliminary diagnosis were published in the ‘ Abstract,' the species is distinguished by the name being underlined.-E d i t o r .] f Thos.' Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xix. p. 161 (1897). |