| OCR Text |
Show 360 MR. OLDFIELD THOMAS ON [Nov. 28, smoky blackish. Tail black above, very slightly more greyish below. Skull as in true brachyurus. Dimensions of the type, measured in the flesh :- Head and body 506 mm. ; tail 54; hind foot 138 ; ear 78. Type. Adult female. B.M. No. 6.1.4.389. Original number 604. Collected 7 July, 1905. This Hare affords an instance of the blackening so often found in insular forms. No doubt it is a kind of melanism, but the indications given by three specimens, even though they differ in degree, that the darkening is not spasmodic or individual, renders it necessary to recognise the animal by a subspecific name*. II. Y a k u s h im a . Yakushima was not visited by Mr. Malcolm Anderson, but by his brother, Mr. Robert Y. Anderson, who had been helping him in his collecting work in Kiushiu, Shikoku, and the Oki Islands. The following is an extract from the admirable notes on the island he has given me :- " Yakushima lies some forty miles south of the southernmost headland of Kiushiu, a few miles south-west of Tanegashima, and between 30° 15' and 30° 25' N. lat. It is one of the Osumi group of small islands which are the most northerly of the Liu-Kiu curve. It is extremely mountainous in character, the only approximation to the level being along the coast whence a gentle incline slopes to the steep hills a quarter of a mile to a mile away. The island is seen from the sea as a mass of densely-forested high mountains with straight low coast-line, several ridges that inclose basins culminating centrally in Miyanoura-dake at an altitude of more than six thousand five hundred feet. The island is circular, with a diameter of about fifteen miles. The sides of the hills usually slope at an angle of forty-five degrees, except here and there where great cliffs of granite make a break in the forest. " The climate is very wet, and the island abounds in streams and mountain-torrents. Light snow sometimes falls, even in summer, on the highest peaks. " There are no rabbits or martens in Yakushima, but, according to native reports, weasels are common."-11. V. A. Although he heard of them from the natives, Mr. Anderson was not able to obtain any specimens of the Yakushima monkey, weasel, or deer; but it fortunately happens that a collection of Mammals has just been acquired by the Museum from Mr. Alan Owston, which contains examples of the first and third, besides a weasel from Tanegashima, and I therefore record them here, so as to complete the list of the Mammals known to exist in the island. * Mr. Anderson has since written to me expressing his conviction that the Oki Have is constantly different from that from Hondo. |
