levation of the tail may cause a deviation from a fixed
course. According to Elliot it is very gentle, timid, and may be tamed,
but from its delicacy is difficult to preserve. The fur is soft,
beautiful and much valued. Jerdon gives the localities in which he
has found it to be most common: Malabar, Travancore (the Marquis of
Tweeddale, according to Dr. Anderson, got a specimen from this
locality of a much lighter colour than usual), the Bustar forests
in Central India, Vindhian mountains near Mhow, the Northern Circars,
and the Midnapore jungles.

NO. 298. PTEROMYS CINERACEUS.
_The Ashy Flying Squirrel_.

NATIVE NAME.--_Shau-byau_ in Arakan.

HABITAT.--Assam, Burmah, viz. Arakan, Pegu and Tenasserim
provinces.

DESCRIPTION.--Very like the last, but with a greyish fur, and almost
white tail, with a black tip.

The fur generally is a mixture of pale grey and brownish, the hairs
of the head and back having a whitish sub-terminal band; the tail
consists almost entirely of the greyish hairs; the parachute is
reddish brown; the under-parts white. Blyth, however, mentions a
specimen from Tenasserim which is unusually rufous, with the tail
concolorous with the upper parts.

SIZE.--Same as the last.

It is open to question whether this is not identical with _Pteromys
oral_, merely a local variety. Blyth so termed it; and from what Dr.
Anderson has written on the subject, I gather that he, too, inclines
to the same opinion, as he says: "The dimensions are the same as those
of _P. oral_, Tickell, of which it will probably prove to be a local
race."

NO. 299. PTEROMYS YUNNANENSIS.
_The Yunnan Flying Squirrel_.

HABITAT.--Kananzan mountains; Burmo-Chinese frontier.

DESCRIPTION.--Dr. Anderson, who discovered and named this species,
describes it as follows: "The general colour is a rich dark maroon
chestnut on all the upper parts, the head and back in some being
finely speckled with white, which is most marked in the young, but
is always most profuse on the posterior half of the back, which in
some individuals has almost a hoary tinge, from the extent to which
the annulation of the hairs is carried.

"In the adult, the upper surface of the parachute is of the same
colour as the back, and the hairs are not annulated, except along
its margin; but in younger specimens they are partially so on the
upper surface, as are also the hairs on the first three or six inches
of the tail, which are concolorous with the back,