NATIVE NAMES.—Balu-suar, Hind., Sand-pig, or, as Jerdon has it, Bhalu-soor, Hind., i.e. Bear-pig; Khway-too-wet-too, Arakanese.
HABITAT.—Nepal, Sikim, Assam, Sylhet, Arakan, extending, as Dr. Anderson has observed, to Western Yunnan. The late General A. C. McMaster found it in Shway Gheen On the Sitang river in Pegu. I heard of it in the forests of Seonee in the Central Provinces, but I never came across one.
| Arctonyx collaris. |
DESCRIPTION.—"Hair of the body rough, bristly, and straggling; that of the head shorter, and more closely adpressed. Head, throat, and breast yellowish white; on the upper part this colour forms a broad regularly-defined band from the snout to the occiput; ears of the same colour; the nape of the neck, a narrow band across the breast, the anterior portion of the abdomen, the extremities, a band arising from the middle of the upper lip, gradually wider posteriorly, including the eyes and ears, and another somewhat narrower arising from the lower lip, passing the cheek, uniting with the former on the neck, are deep blackish-brown" (Horsfield). The tail is short, attenuated towards the end, and covered with rough hairs.
SIZE.—From snout to root of tail, 25 inches; tail, 7 inches; height at the rump, 12 inches.
M. Duvaucel states that "it passes the greatest part of the day in profound somnolence, but becomes active at the approach of night; its gait is heavy, slow, and painful; it readily supports itself erect on its hind feet, and prefers vegetables to flesh."
Jerdon alludes to all this, and adds, "one kept in captivity preferred fruit, plantains, &c., as food, and refused all kinds of meat. Another would eat meat, fish, and used to burrow and grope under the walls of the bungalow for worms and shells." My idea is Balu-suar, or Sand-pig is the correct name, although Bhalu-suar or Bear-pig may hit off the appearance of the animal better, but its locality has always been pointed out to me by the Gonds in the sandy beds of rivers in the bamboo forests of Seonee; and Horsfield also has it Baloo-soor, Sand-pig.
Bewick, who was the first to figure and describe it, got, as the vulgar phrase hath it, the wrong pig by the lug, as he translates it Sand-bear. McMaster also speaks of those he saw as being in deep ravines on the Sitang river.
The stomach of Arctonyx is simple; there is no cæcum, as is the case also with the bears; the liver has five lobes; under the tail it has glands, as in the Badgers, secreting a fatty and odorous substance.