Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Part 46

NATIVE NAMES.--_Loh_, Kashmiri; _Lomri_, Hindi, at Simla; _Wamu_, Nepalese.

HABITAT.--Throughout the Himalayas.

DESCRIPTION.--Pale fulvous, with a dark brownish or deep chestnut streak down the back; sides deeper fulvous; the haunches a steely grey, mixed with yellowish hairs; tail grey and very bushy, largely tipped with white; ears deep black on outside; cheeks and jowl greyish-white; moustaches black; legs chestnut in front, paling off behind.

SIZE.--Head and body, 30 inches; tail, 19 inches; weight, 14 lbs.

Not at all unlike an English fox, only more variegated. The foregoing description is taken chiefly from a very fine specimen shot in the garden of the house in which I stayed at Simla; but it is subject to great variation, and is in its chief beauty in its winter dress.

Several specimens which I have seen are all more or less different in colour. I have never seen a handsomer fox; the fur is extremely rich, the longer hairs exceeding two inches, and the inner fur is fine and dense. It is said to breed in April and May, the female usually having three to four cubs.

NO. 254. VULPES PUSILLUS.

_The Punjab Fox_ (_Jerdon's No. 141_).

HABITAT.--Punjab Salt Range.

DESCRIPTION.--Similar to the last, but much smaller, being about the size of the Indian fox. Jerdon suggests that it may be a variety of the last species, dwarfed by a warmer climate, but Blyth and others keep it apart.

NO. 255. VULPES FLAVESCENS.

_The Persian Fox_.

NATIVE NAMES.--_Tulke_, at Yarkand; _Wamu_, Nepalese.

HABITAT.--Eastern Turkestan, Ladakh, Persia, and, according to Gray, Indian Salt Range; Thibet.

DESCRIPTION.--Fulvous, darker on back, very similar to _V. monta.n.u.s_, only more generally rufous and paler, with longer hair and larger teeth; face, outer side of fore-legs and base of tail pale fulvous; spot on side of face, chin, front of fore-legs, and a round spot on upper part of hind foot blackish; hairs of tail tipped black; ears externally black; tail tipped largely with white. The skull of one mentioned by Mr. Blanford had larger auditory bullae than either the European fox or _V. monta.n.u.s_.

NO. 256. VULPES GRIFFITHII.

_The Afghanistan Fox_.

This was at first reckoned by Blyth as synonymous with the last, but was afterwards separated and renamed. It is stated by Hutton to be common about Candahar, where the skins are made into _reemchas_ and _poshteens_, the price in 1845 being about six annas a skin.

MARINE CARNIVORA.

We disposed of the land Carnivora in the last article, and now, before proceeding to the Cetacea, I will give a slight sketch of the marine Carnivora, of which, however, no examples are to be found on the Indian coasts. The Pinnipedia or Pinnigrada are amphibious in their habits, living chiefly in the water, but resorting occasionally to the land. There are some examples of the land Carnivora which do the same--the polar bear and otter, and more especially the sea-otter, _Enhydra lutris_, which is almost exclusively aquatic, but these are all decidedly of the quadrupedal type, whereas in the amphibia we see the approach to the fish form necessary for their mode of life.

The skeleton reveals the ordinary characteristics of the quadruped with somewhat distorted limbs. The bones of the forelimbs are very powerful and short, a broad scapula, short humerus and the ulna and radius are stout, parallel to each other, and the latter much broader at the base; often in old animals the two are ankylosed at the joint, which is also the case with the tibia and fibula. The hip-bones are narrow and much compressed, the femur remarkably short, the shank-bones and the bones of the feet very long. In walking on land the feet are, in the case of the _Otaria_ or eared seals placed flat on the full sole; the common seals never use their hind limbs on the sh.o.r.e. The dent.i.tion is essentially carnivorous, but varies considerably in the different families, and even in the _Phocidae_ themselves. The stomach is simple, but the intestines are considerably longer than in the _Felidae_, averaging about fifteen times the length of the body; the digestion is rapid. The bones are light and spongy, and the spine particularly flexible, from the amount of cartilage between the bones. They have a large venous cavity in the liver, and the lungs are capacious, the two combining to a.s.sist them in keeping under water; the blood is dark and abundant.

The brain is large, and in quant.i.ty and amount of convolution exceeds that of the land Carnivores. Their hearing is acute, but their sight out of water is defective.

Their external features are an elongated pisciform body, the toes joined by a membrane converting the feet into broad flippers or fins, the two hind ones being so close as to act like the caudal fin of a fish. The head is flattish and elongated, or more or less rounded, but in comparison with the body it is small. Except in the _Otaridae_ there are no perceptible ears, and in them the ear is very small.

The fur is of two kinds, one long and coa.r.s.e, but the other, or under fur, is beautifully soft and close, and is the ordinary sealskin of commerce. The roots of the coa.r.s.e hair go deeper into the skin than those of the under fur, so the furrier takes advantage of this by thinning the skin down to the coa.r.s.e roots, cutting them free, and then the hairs are easily removed, leaving the soft fur attached to the skin.

The Pinnigrada are divided into three families--the _Trichechidae_, or walruses; the _Otaridae_, or sea-lions or eared seals; and the _Phocidae_, or ordinary seals.

As none of these animals have been as yet observed in the Indian seas, being chiefly denizens of cold zones, I will not attempt any further description of species, having merely alluded to them _en pa.s.sant_ as forming an important link in the chain of animal creation.

We must now pa.s.s on to the next order, a still more aquatic one.

ORDER CETACEA--THE WHALES.

These curious creatures have nothing of the fish about them, save the form, and frequently the name. In other respects they are warm-blooded, viviparous mammals, dest.i.tute of hinder limbs, and with very short fore-limbs completely enclosed in skin, but having the usual number of bones, though very much shortened, forming a kind of fin. The fin on the back is horizontal, and not rayed and upright like that of a fish; the tail resembles that of a fish in form, the caudal vertebrae running through the middle of it. The immense muscular power of this tail, with its broad f.l.a.n.g.es, arises from the flesh of the body, terminating in long cords of tendon, running to the tip. The vertebral column is often ankylosed in the fore-part, but is extremely elastic, owing to the cartilaginous cushion between each bone in the latter half. Thus, whilst the fore-part is rigid, the hinder is flexible in the extreme. The brain is large and much convoluted; the heart is very large, and the blood-vessels extremely full and numerous, with extensive ramifications, which, being filled with oxygenated blood, a.s.sist in supporting life whilst submerged.

The lungs are also very large. The laryngeal and nasal pa.s.sages are peculiar. The following description is by Dr. Murie: "In front of the larynx of man we all know that there is an elastic lid, the epiglottis, which folds over and protects the air pa.s.sage as food is swallowed. The side cartilages const.i.tute the walls of the organ of voice and protect the vocal chords. Now, in the comparatively voiceless whale, the cartilages, including the epiglottis, form a long rigid cylindrical tube, which is thrust up the pa.s.sage at the back of the palate in continuity with the blow-hole. It is there held in place by a muscular ring. With the larynx thus retained bolt upright, and the blow-hole being meanwhile compressed or closed, the cetacean is enabled to swallow food under water without the latter entering the lungs." The stomach is peculiar, being composed of several sacs or chambers with narrow pa.s.sages between; the intestines are long, glandular and, according to Dr. Murie, full of little pouches. There is no gall bladder; the gullet is very narrow in some and wider in others. Some have teeth, others are without.

The eyes are small; the ears deficient externally, though the interior small ear-bones of ordinary mammals are in these ma.s.sive and exceedingly dense, so much so, as Murie observes, as to be frequently preserved fossil when other osseous structures are destroyed.

The cetacea have been divided into the _Denticete_, or Toothed Whales, and the _Mysticete_, or Whalebone Whales. The former contains the river dolphins, the ziphoid whales, the gigantic sperm whale, the sea dolphins, and the narwhal or sea unicorn. The latter contains the baleen whales.

_DENTICETE--THE TOOTHED WHALES_.

None of the larger species are found on these coasts, or in the Indian Ocean, the two most interesting of which are the gigantic sperm whales (_Physeter macrocephalus_), and the curious narwhal or sea unicorn (_Monodon monoceros_). The latter is an inhabitant of the northern seas only, but the sperm abounds in warmer waters, being frequently found in the sub-tropical oceans. I have occasionally seen them in the South Atlantic, though they are said to have diminished there of late years. It is a wonder that the species does not get scarce in many localities, so great is the chase after them.

During the last forty years the Americans alone have taken at the rate of 10,000 barrels of sperm oil per annum, or upwards of four million barrels since 1835. The sperm whale, though of such enormous bulk and courage, yet has enemies besides man. The thrasher and the killer whale both attack it, and sailors a.s.sert that the sword-fish and thrasher combine against it, the latter stabbing from below, whilst the former leaps on it with stunning blows. I think by sword-fish (_Xiphias_), which is also a large but not so very sanguinary a fish, they mean the saw-fish (_Pristis_), which is allied to the sharks, and which attacks the largest whales. The sword-fish has however the character of being pugnacious. The old sperms, especially males, will show fight at times, but the younger ones are easily alarmed, and on being molested rush off in various directions, each looking out for himself. The sperm whale is known from the others by the way in which it spouts, the jet being thrown up obliquely forwards, and it blows at regular intervals. Although the old "bulls" show a certain amount of ferocity at times, their savageness is considerably exaggerated by the whalers, who love to spin yarns about them. Having watched the habits of these and the baleen whales with curiosity, I tried to get as much information about them as I could, from the whalers, but, with the exception of the officers of whaling ships, there was much that was unreliable in Jack's notions about the sperm. On one occasion I was just too late to see one killed. The boats, under full sail, were towing the carcase towards the ship. I would have given a good deal to have seen the encounter. The food of the sperm consists greatly of the huge rock squid or cuttle-fish, which they swallow in large lumps. I have heard whalers a.s.sert that a wounded sperm in the death agony will vomit immense pieces of squid. In this respect it differs much from the baleen whales, which have a narrow gullet. According to Professor Flower there is no sufficient evidence of the existence of more than one species of sperm whales, but an allied species, _Physeter_ (_Euphysetes_) _simus_, is found on the Madras coast, and to this I will allude further on.

FAMILY DELPHINIDAE--THE DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES.

_GENUS PLATANISTA--THE RIVER DOLPHINS_.

A globular head with a long, compressed and, towards the end, spoon-shaped rostrum or snout; flippers short, broad and triangular; a long body of moderate girth; no back fin, but a slight elevation which takes its place. There is a decided depression between the head and body on the region of the neck; the eye is remarkably small, so much so as to be hardly perceptible; in an adult of eight feet long the whole eye-ball is no bigger than a pea, and the orifice of the ear is like a pin-hole.

The skull has peculiar features. "The apparently rounded skull behind the snout has broad, thick zygomatic arches, and above and in front of these the cheek-bones (_maxillae_) each send forwards and inwards a great roughened sheet of bone or crest, which forms a kind of open helmet. In the large hollow between these bony plates, and somewhat behind, are situated the nasal orifices, which are slightly awry" (_Murie_).[19] Professor Flower's notice of the skull ('Osteology of the Mammalia') is thus worded: "The orbit is extremely small, the temporal fossa large, and the zygomatic processes of the squamosal are greatly developed. From the outer edge of the ascending plates of the maxillae, which lie over the frontals, great crests of bone, smooth externally, but reticulated and laminated on their inner surface, rise upwards, and, curving inwards, nearly meet in the middle line above the upper part of the face."

[Footnote 19: See Appendix B for ill.u.s.tration.]

The dent.i.tion is also curious, the upper and lower jaws being provided with a number of teeth, pointed and conical in front, and smaller and more flattened behind. They vary in number. In an example quoted by Dr. Murie the total was 117, viz., 27--28/30--32, but in a specimen examined by Dr. Anderson, who has most exhaustively described these animals, the total number of teeth amounted to 128, i.e. 33--32/32--31. (See Appendix B, p. 525.)

The cervical vertebrae are movable, and not ankylosed, as in many of the cetacea; the caec.u.m is small; the blow-hole is a narrow slit, not transverse as in other whales, but longitudinal. I have somewhat gone out of order in Jerdon's numbering in bringing in this genus here instead of letting it follow Delphinus, as he has done. These river Dolphins naturally come after the extinct Phocodontia or seal-toothed whales, and bear considerable resemblance in the dent.i.tion to the extinct genus Squalodon.

NO. 257. PLATANISTA GANGETICA.

_The Gangetic Porpoise_ (_Jerdon's Nos. 144 and 145_).

NATIVE NAMES.--_Soonse_, _Soosoo_, _Soosa_, Hindi; _Susak_, _Shishuk_, Bengali; _Sisumar_, Sanscrit; _Bulhan_ or _Sunsar_, on the Indus; _Hihoo_, _Siho_; a.s.samese; _Huhh_ in Cachar and Sylhet.

HABITAT.--In the larger rivers connected with the Ganges nearly up to the hills; also in the Brahmaputra and in the Indus, but in fresh water; only it does not go out to sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Platanista Gangetica_.]

DESCRIPTION.--"A long compressed snout with a formidable array of teeth; a vaulted compressed forehead; longitudinal blow-hole; scarcely perceptible eye; distinct neck; broad and abruptly truncated pectoral fins, and small dorsal fin; and the male, a smaller but heavier-built animal than the female, with a shorter snout" (_Anderson_). The colour is from a dark lead to a sooty black; according to Jerdon "when old with some lighter spots here and there; shining pearl-grey when dry."

SIZE.--From six to eight feet.

This animal, though not often captured, at all events in the vicinity of Calcutta, is familiar to most people who have travelled on the larger Indian rivers. It is common enough in the Hooghly. I have frequently observed it in the river abreast of the Fort whilst we were slowly driving down the Course.