"We did not see any images or pagodas connected with BUDDH, his precepts and disciples, sculptured or built, and worshipped by the inhabitants of China. We only saw in every town and village, buildings dedicated to Nats, and large images of Nats, before which buffalos, bullocks, goats and hogs were killed and sacrificed. The Chinese priests wear trowsers and jackets of black, blue or yellow colours, and shave the hair of their heads, and wear caps. They eat at night, but have no wife or children. They do not drink spirituous liquors and do not study books. They guard the buildings dedicated to Nats, and the figures of Nuts, day and night, and after sweeping the floor or ground clean, they burn lights at night before the figures of the Nats, and remain in attendance; and when the inhabitants of the country kill buffaloes, cows, goats and hogs, and offer them in sacrifice, the chief of the priests superintends and directs the ceremony. "Children learn to read by paying money to a teacher. From Luay-laing chokey to Pekin, all the towns and villages on our road presented us with money and clothes agreeably to former custom. On our arrival at Pekin we delivered the royal letter and presents and had audiences of the emperor, and he gave us presents. These particulars, with the days on which they occurred and the quantity of presents we received, having been already reported, (in separate letters to the king and ministers, of which I still hope to procure copies) they are omitted here, and only a description of the different towns we saw in our journey, and of the city of Pekin, and an account of the military and civil officers and of their dress are inserted. "We left Ava on the 27th June, 1833, reached Pekin, the residence of the emperor of China on the 3rd February, 1834. We remained at Pekin 32 days and left it on the 6th of March, with the letter from the emperor, his presents of cloth for the king and queen of Ava, and the letter addressed by the ministers of the emperor, to the Lhuot-tô at Ava. We returned by the same route as that by which we went to Pekin, and arrived at Yunan in a certain number of days, and remained there for some days, whilst the Tsoun-tu prepared his letter for the Lhuot-tô at Ava. We then came to Mo-myin, and having written a petition for the king and a letter for the ministers of Ava, we inserted these documents into bamboos covered with red cloth, and sealing them carefully, delivered them to the governor of Mö:myin for the purpose of being forwarded to the governor of Ba-mô, who transmitted them to Ava. We requested that governor also to send a party to meet us at the chokey of Luay-laing and escort us in safety agreeably to former custom. From Mo:myin to Luay-laing we were escorted by a party of musqueteers with a suitable officer, and the Tsô-buáhs and chiefs of the eight Shan cities conveyed to Ba-mô the emperor of China's letter and presents, and all our baggage.” V.—On a new genus of the Plantigrades. By B. H. HODGSON, Esq. In your 52nd No., for April 1836, I described, summarily but carefully, fourteen new animals of this kingdom, including, with those priorly, described by myself in various numbers of your Journal, and in the Society's Transactions, all the mammals then known to me as inhabitants of Nepal*, of which descriptions had not been given by others. To General HARDWICKE, science is indebted for an account of the Ghoral antelope, and of the yellow-necked marten: to Messrs. VIGORS and HORSFIELD, for an account of the Nipalese Cat. But I am not aware that any more mammals of Nepal had been given to the world, when I commenced the task of recording them; and I believe I have added essentially to the correctness of the descriptions of those three. The Mulsampra or yellow-necked marten (of BODDAERT, by the way, originally) had always been stated to be a mustela merely. By the examination of its skull I ascertained that it belonged to the subgenus Martes. In like manner, the Nemorhadine Ghoral had been alleged to have suborbital sinuses-a mistake which I corrected. This gradual emendation of the record of species is the necessary fruit of continuous attention; a fruit that ripens slowly with the recur. ring sunshine of opportunity; for, with so many things to note in every animal, it is odds but the specimen or the observer will be wanting somewhere, if there be no room or inclination for reiteration. I speak apologetically for myself, and, on the present occasion, purpose to correct some errors and deficiencies in the descriptions of No. 52 of your Journal. Two animals are there described by the names of Gulo Nipalensis, and Gulo Urva. The latter proves not to be a Gulo, but an osculant new form between Herpestes and Gulo, which, I shall now endeavour to do justice to, previously amending the statement of the colors of the former as follows. Gulo Nipalensis, nobis. Glutton, above, saturate glossy brown; below, with a dorsal line extending from the middle of the head nearly to the hips; a transverse band drawn obliquely across the brows to the middle of the cheeks; and the terminal third of the tail, brilliant orange yellow. Superior and inferior colors strongly contrasted, occupying the lateral as well as inferior aspect of the head, but the inferior only of the face, neck and body. Edge merely of the upper lip, paled: inner margin of the ears the same, and both concolorous * See the recent Systematic Catalogue transmitted to the Curator of the Museum. It contains 98 species and varieties, of which 45 are, I believe, new. with the lower surface: a dark small patch behind the gape, on either cheek: fore limbs, paled, internally to the wrists, and frequently spreading over the digits: hind, only to the oscalcis or less. Four teats placed in a parallelogram, in the posteal region of the belly; two of them, inguinal, and two ventral. In young animals, and in the winter dress of mature ones, the dark superior surface is earthy grey brown, and the pale inferior, as well as the marks above, canescent; the dark moustache is also wanting. Tribe PLANTIGRADES. Genus Urva, nobis. Character. Teeth as in the Genus Herpestes. Structure and aspect precisely mediate between Herpestes and Gulo, subvermiform and digito-plantigrade. Snout elongated, sharpened and mobile. Hands and feet largish; with the digits connected by large crescented membranes. Sole and palm nude. Hind feet clad half-way from the os calcis. Nails subequal before and behind, Guloherpestine. On either side the anus a round, hollow, smooth-lined gland secreting an aqueous fœtid humour which the animal squirts out posteally with force. No subsidiary glands, nor any unctuous fragrant secretion. Teats six, remote and ventral. Stomach purely membranous, without neck or fundus. A short blunt cœcum of equal diameter with the great gut. Orbits incomplete*. Habits. Cancrivorous and ranivorous; dwelling in burrows in the valleys of the lower and central hilly regions of Nepal. Type. Gulo Urva, of the Journal No. 52 for April 1836. Urva cancrivora hodie, nobis. Affinities various, closest with Herpestes and Gulo, connecting Mydans, Mephitis and Ursitarus, on one hand, and Herpestes and Viverra on the other, and forming a singular link between the odoriferous and fœtid genera of the Digitigrade and Plantigrade Tribes; its obvious station being at the end of the one, or at the beginning of the other tribe. Color. That of the jackal or fulvous iron grey, darker and embrowned on the inferior surface of the neck and on the chest. Limbs black brown. A white stripe on either side the neck from ear to shoulder. Edge of the upper lip and the whole lower jaw canescent. Terminal half of the tail rufous yellow. Fur of two sorts, very ample and laxly Some of these marks of our genus, or subgenus, are, I am aware, only significant by their combination with others. And, as to their number, it appears to me that we shall only reach the more intimate affinities of the mammals by carrying into this department of Zoology a portion of the precision and minuteness which have been applied to the Ornithological department. set on; the exterior, quadrannulated from the base with hoary or fulvous and with black; the interior, dusky at the base, fulvous upwards. Structure and Size. Tip of snout to root of tail (dorsal), Length of head (snout to jut of occiput straight), ... Tail only, .... .... ...... 4 lbs. Longest toe, Its nail (straight), . Length of external ear (vertical),.. Weight of the animal, Its free exsertion from the head, or depth of the helix,.. It is impossible to describe the general and particular external conformation of this animal more precisely than by saying that they are Gulo-herpestine, reference being had to the more slender-bodied species of the former genus, such as Orientalis and Nipalensis. In Herpestes, the structure is more vermiform, with greater length of tail and of neck, (palpably noticeable in the skeletons ;) and the hands and feet are shorter in proportion to the leg and arm, the metacarpi and metatarsi being more compactly knit. In Gulo as before limited, the bulk of the body and length of the neck, agree with those of our animal; but the tail is shorter; the anterior limbs heavier and their talons more decidedly fossorial; the agreement in these latter respects being closer with Herpestes, and indeed, almost identical in reference to the proportional strength and size of the anterior and posterior extremities, with their digits and talons. The talons, however, are, in our animal, more fossorial, that is, blunter and stronger, than in Herpestes. In the general contour of the cranium, and in the number, position and character of the teeth, Urva agrees with Herpestes, with the two following marked differences, and approximations of our animal to Gulo, viz.: the orbits are incomplete, and the ample swell of the parietes reduces the longitudinal and transverse cristæ, but especi ally the latter, to less than half their size in the skull of Herpestes*. The thorax is much more capacious in Urva than in Herpestes; the spinous processes of the cervical vertebræ are smaller and more equal; and there are only 21 caudal vertebræ instead of 28, as in Herpestes. In both Herpestes and Gulo there are but four mamma: in our animal there are six. The snout of our animal is much more elongated and mobile than in Gulo: more so palpably than in Herpestes. Lastly, the anal apparatus of Urva, differs from that of both genera, approximating it very closely to the mephitic weasels, to HORSFIELD'S Mydans, and to our Ursitaxus. Too little is known of the anal and quasi-anal organs of many odorous and fœtid genera to enable me to speak with much confidence on this subject; but I take the present occasion to retract the assertion made in your April No. for last year relative to Herpestes. Both the Nipalese species of that genus (Herpestes,) have a congeries of small glands surrounding the caudal margin of the anus like a ring, and secreting a thick musky peculiar substance, which is slowly protruded in strings like vermicelli, through numberless minute scattered pores. And the lowland species (or Nyula, nobis) has also on either side the rectum, two larger and hollow glands, of similar character with the others, apparently, but distinguished by a rather thinner secretion by the hollowness of these glands, and by each being furnished with a larger and palpable pore. The peculiarity of our Urva is that it has only the lateral glands; that their secretion is aqueous, horribly fœtid, and projectile to a great distance by the living animal by means of the muscular rings which surround the neck of the duct; not to mention that the central cavity is much larger, and has a more distinct neck or duct, which points obliquely backwards or outwards, causing the discharge to be in that direction, I append to this paper a note by Dr. CAMPBELL, taken at my request, on the anal apparatus of our Urva, upon which type of our proposed new genus, I shall add no more at present save that its manners, so far as known to me, agree much more nearly with those of Gulo than with those of Herpestes. Genus Mustela; subgenus Putorius, CUVIER. Species new. Subhemachalanus, nobis. Structure, and aspect of Cathia vel auriventer, nobis. Vide Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, December 1835. The compressed parietes and large cristæ of Herpestes are interesting points of agreement with Viverra; as the tumid parietes and small crista of Gulo and of Urva, are with Mustela. The former or odoriferous races bear in respect to the form and size of the encephalon the same analogy with the third section of the canine, as the latter or foetid races do with the second section. |