The following are the characters of this speoies which I figure (Plates X and
XII fins 4 to 6) from the fine, adult, male example in the India Museum,
London. The upper surface of the type of L. wmatrana, Gray, is dark nch brown,
d X r t on the t a d . passing into a paler, hut slighily m o r e rufous brown on the
ventral aspect. The area below the nose, the upper hp, the angle of the mouth, and
the chin backwards along the throat, until on a line below the earn, are yellowish-
white. The ears are small, broad antero-posteriorly, low, rounded, and with an
obscure1 apical point. The colour of the moustachial and other haas generally,
corresponds to the colour of the region in which thpy are situated hut occasionally
white bristles are met with. The upper surface of the webs is clad with hair, and
the palms and soles are sprinkled with hairs. The claws are of
larger on the fore than on the hind limbs. The tail is rather narrow j U g g
in the type, and the body to the vent measures 21 mches, and the ta il10 inche .
The nosfis completely covered with hair, except on the centre, where it has been
slightly abraded. The specimen of this Otter m
mLures from the muzzle to the vent 29-50 inches, the ^ d being 19 mches long.
The fur is short, glossy, and adpressed, and the colour is a nch, rather H g H I
brown, darkest on the head. The upper lip, chin, and anterior part rf the throat
are white, the white in the middle line being encroached on by the brown of the
chest. The cheeks and the sides of the neck axe pale brown. The under parte axe
slightly paler brown than the sides. The tail is narrow and much tapered, and very
dark brown in its latter half. The ears axe small, and the nose is haixed^but
partially abraded. The claws axe strongly developed. The specmim isfrom
Malacca, and differs in no respect from Gray’s type of Sm-mgm just desmbed.
The skull (Plate X, figs. 4 to 6) is allied to the skull I have figured as L. mmhcola
in its post-orbital swelling, hut in its other characters it is -affined_to g U W |H g
The Otter of India first separated by P. Cuvier as distinct from the European
species under the name of JL. nmr, was described from a specimen procured at
P°n' ^ S ^ G m y t i t o t e d a strong-clawed and naked-nosed Otter from India
a s i . Mica. H e a t f i r s t e r r o n e o u s l y m e n t i o n e d B o m b a y » t h e l o c a H t y f t o m w h e n c e
it had been obtained, whereas the specimens had been procured by Six Walter |
in the Madras Presidency, and constituted the Lutrantwr of that naturalist s
Catalogue of the Mammals of the Southern Mahratta Country,1 and were therefore, m
reality from t h e s a m e zoological province in which L.™irhad been ongmally found.
On the same occasion1 Dr. Gray indicated a very young Otter from China under the
name of L. chmensis. Hodgson, writing in 1839,‘heldthatnc.lessi than seven species
of Otter were found in Nepal, five of which he considered differed from the L. nmr,
p. Cuv., and LJmdiea, Gray, and four of them he regarded as new; and m 1839
1 Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud. 1865, p. 123.
» Charlesworth’s Mag. N at. Hist. Oct. 1837, vol. i. new ser., p. 580.
? Madras, Joorn. Lit. and Sc. vol. x. 1839, p. 100.
* J o ^ i S L Brag. vol. viii. 1839; p. 319: ot Am . m i Mag. Hot. H ut. vol. iv. 1840, p. 28.
he described these supposed new species under the names of L. tarayensis,
L. montícola, L. indigitata, and L. a/urobru/nnea.
In 184j3 1 Dr. Gray regarded Lutra indica as identical with the young animal
from China, and placed the former as a synonym of L. chinensis, and he adopted a
similar view with regard to L. tarayensis, which was afterwards shared by Hodgson.
Twenty-two years afterwards, however, he altered his opinion, and revived the
species L. indica, placing L. tarayensis as a synonym of it, and doubtfully regarded
L. nair, E. Cuv., in the same light, and retained the Chinese Otter as a distinct
species, accepting Hodgson’s species L. montícola; and this course has been followed
in his most recent work on the Carnivora,3 in which L. mdigitata, Hodg., and Lutra
aurobmmnea, Hodg., are referred to the genus Aonyx, Dr. Gray having overlooked
the circumstance that L. cmrobru/imea is a strong-clawed Otter of the type of L. nair,
while L. mdigitata is apparently an example of L. {Aonyx) leptonyx, Horsfield.
Hodgson forwarded the types of his various species of Otter to the British
Museum, but unfortunately seemingly without names, and along with them a series
of Otter skulls the species of which were not stated,8 nor are the skins to which
they belonged at present indicated. The only statement on record regarding the
characters of the skull of Lutra tarayensis is, that it is much depressed, with the
lower incisors ranged nearly in a line, but beyond this brief and vague description
none else exists regarding these Nepal skulls. Under these circumstances, there are
as yet no reliable materials to enable us to distinguish between the skulls of the two
supposed species. Doubtless a skull bearing the name of L. montícola exists in the
Museum of the Boyal College of Surgeons, London, but it is not quite certain that
Hodgson presented it as an example of L. montícola. This skull, however, exactly
agrees with certain skulls in the British Museum bearing the name of L. montícola,
but, as Dr. Gray remarks, and I have personally verified his observation, the skulls
of two distinct species of Otter exist in the National Collection under the name of
L. montícola. I have figured (Plate XII, figs. 1 to 3) the type of skull named
L. montícola in the Boyal College of Surgeons’ Museum, not because there is any
decisive evidence that it is the skull of the Otter described as L. montícola, but with
the purpose of illustrating one of the types of skull distinctive of the large, long-
clawed Otters of India and the Himalaya. The other type of skull, and which was
one of the forms referred to by Dr. Gray under L. montícola, is very closely allied to
the Otter of Europe; but, as I have said, there are no means at present of identifying
one or other of these two types of skull with any of the skulls of the large Otters
described by Hodgson, and, moreover, unfortunately his descriptions of the peripheral
characters of L . tarayensis and L. montícola aré not sufficiently detailed to permit
of the undoubted recognition of these species.
Two large, long-clawed species of Otter occur in the neighbourhood of Calcutta,
one with a skull resembling the skull of L. vulgaris, and another with a skull of
1 List Mamm. B. M. 1843, p. 71.
* Cat. Carniv. Mamm. 1869.
s drawings of the species exist as a means of identifying the forms he described, but they are of little use in
determining which of the skins in the British Museum are referable to L . montícola and which to L . tarayensis. The
skulls of the species were not figured.