male, and more especially in tlie inferior incisors; while in the female the upper
incisors are almost white, and the lower front teeth are richly coloured.
I t has been stated that " the species of JRhizonvys live on and not under the
ground,” hut this account of their habits was given m an y years ago, and when no
authentic information existed regarding their mode of life or distribution. Now,
however, it is established that the members of this group are essentially burrowing
animals. Their burrows are well known to the Kakhyens on the borders of Yunnan,
who are great experts in unearthing them, digging and smoking them out of their
subterranean dwellings for food. I have frequently been shown their burrows on
the hill sides, and they were generally narrow tunnels run into the ground on the
face of some little escarpment; hut I can say nothing as to the details of their
construction. These rats feed in the evening at sundown, and the contents of their
stomachs reveal that their food is not confined to the tender shoots of the bamboo,
as is generally supposed, but that the young shoot® of other vegetable productions,
as well as various grains, suoh as Indian-com and rice, form considerable elements
in their nutrition, and I have known them to eat mice in captivity.
The young are quiet and inoffensive, but the ferine adults, more especially the
males, are very fierce and at once show fight without thinking of retreating, emitting
a peculiar hissing grunt as they charge. The female also when in company
of ihe young becomes greatly excited when captured; and I have seen one in these
circumstances, when her own young were placed beside her, rapidly kill them off,
one after the other, as they fondled her and searched for her teats to suck; hut, on
the other hand, in confinement I have known an adult female to he perfectly docile.
B hizomts suMATEEiisis, Baffles.
Mm swmtrensis, Raffles, Trans. Linn. Soe. Lond. 1823 vol. xiii., p. 2*58.
Ithizamy.? sumatrensis, Raffles, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soe. Lond. 1881, p. 95.
Nyctoclepes detail, Temminek, Bijdrag. Nat. Hist. vol. vii. Tab. i. figs. 1-5, et Monograph M a n n .
185-41 v o l ii., pp. 44 and 45; Gervais, Voyage de la Bonite, Zool. vol. i. 1841, p. 54, pi. s.
e t xi. figs. 1-8.
Spalax jamnicus, Cuvier, Animal Kingdom, 2nd ed. 1829 vol. i., p. 211; Schreber’s Saugeth. vol iii
:p. 367, 1848.
Rhizomys cmereus, M'Clelland, Cat. Joum. Nat. Hist. 1842 vol. ii., p. 457.
Rhizomys dekm, Temm., Schinz, Syn. Mamm., 1845 voL ii., pp. 123-24 (in part).
Rhizomys sumatrensis, Baffles, Blyth., Cat. Mamm. As. Soe. Mus. Cal. 1868, p. 122.
This species was originally described by Raffles from a drawing made by
Major Farquhar of a specimen obtained in Malacca, and which was forwarded, with
the drawing, to Sir Stamford Raffles. Dr. M‘Clelland was under the impression
that the drawing of Mus sumatrensis was deposited with the Asiatic Society of
Bengal at Calcutta, and concluded, because he could not find it there, that it was
lost. He also doubted the correctness of the identification of Dr. Gray’s animal
Rhizomys sumatrensis with that of Sir .S. Raffles, and accordingly re-described the
Malayan bamboo-rat or “ deka/ri” under the name of R. cmereus. But Blyth, so
long ago as 1841, pointed out that the drawing of Mus sumatrensis had not been
deposited with the Calcutta Society, hut with the Royal Asiatic Society of London,
where it still remains, and where I have recently examined it. The specimen itself
has not been traced.
Temminek considered that the term R . sumatrensis in being applied to the dekem
was apt to mislead, as the typical specimen was from Malacca, and because the
species had not been found to exist in Sumatra. He therefore changed the specific
name, substituting the term dekan, the Malayan cognomen of the bamboo-rat;
and in this change he has been followed by Gervais, Schinz, Giebel, and A. M.-
Edwards. But if the principle which guided Temminek were to be universally
applied, it would only tend to burden the literature of these subjects with synonyms,
and I do not Hfinlr that this instance is so important as to call for a change of name.
If there were any doubt regarding tbe identity of the form described by Raffles as
Mus sumatrensis, and that described by Temminek as Nyctocleptes dekm, and all
the records of the former were lost, the case would be different; but as the
drawing of the former still exists, and is undoubtedly a representation of the dekm,
it seems to me that the first name applied to the species should meet with the
acceptance of zoologists. I t must also he borne in mind that Raffles himself stated
distinctly that the animal was found at Malacca, where it was known to the natives
as dekm but this term when applied to the species is liable even to a more serious
objection iBa.n sumatrensis, because I have observed in an official catalogue that it
has been construed and interpreted as indicating the habitat of the animal, assigning
it to the Deccan of Central India, a province zoologically very distinct from
Maiayana, of which Sumatra forms a part. The British Museum specimens of this
g.nimfl.1 which I have examined leave no doubt as to their identity with the Mus
sumatrensis of Raffles.
This species attains to a much greater size than any of the others: Raffles gives
the dimensions of his animal as 17 inches, exclusive of the tail which was 6 inches
long; and there are larger examples in the India Museum, London, and having much
the same characters as those indicated by Raffles. In the young the head is
more or less rufous, and sometimes even bright red; and the white spot on the vertex
between the eyes is always present, either lying in, or succeeded by, the dark-brown
band, which breaks up on tbe back into scattered brown , hairs. The under parts
are concolorous with the sides. In the adult, however, the rufous of the head and
the white spot become fainter, and the brown band in some is either wholly lost
or broken up into straggling hairs. In connection with the coloration of the head
of, the young, one is struck with its general resemblance to that of the nearly allied
form, Siphneus.
The skull of R. sumatrensis, Raffles, is very large and massive, and distinguished
from the other species of Rhizomys by tbe long, triangular, flattened and
expanded frontal area, and the flattened and almost vertical character of the inner
wall of the zygomatic fossa, which is rounded in R. pruinosus, Blyth, and more so
in R. badius, Hodgson. The frontal contraction is also placed much posterior to