DESCRIPTION.—"General colour dark or iron grey, with an embrowned ruddy tinge, and the limbs shaded outside, like the body, with black, instead of being unmixed rufous" (Hodgson). The inner fur is soft, downy, and of an ash colour, the outer longer, hispid, harsh and bristly. Some of the hairs ringed black and brown, others are pure black and long, the latter more numerous; ears short and broad.
SIZE.—Head and body, 19½ inches; tail, with hair, 2-1/8 inches; ears, 2¾ inches.
This animal seems to be a link between the hares and the rabbits. Like the latter, it burrows, and has more equal limbs; but, according to Hodgson, it is not gregarious, but lives in pairs. It would greatly help in the identification of its position if some one would procure the young or a gravid female, and see whether the young are born blind and naked as in the rabbits, or open-eyed and clad with fur as in the hares. Jerdon says it is common at Dacca, and is reported to be found also in the Rajmehal hills, and that its flesh is stated to be white, like that of the rabbit.
[FAMILY LAGOMYIDÆ—THE PIKAS, OR MOUSE-HARES.]
One or two premolars above and below; grinding teeth as in Leporidæ; skull depressed; the frontals are contracted, without the wing-like processes of the hares; a single perforation in the facial surface of the maxillaries; a curious prolongation of the posterior angle of the malar into a process extending almost to the ear tube, or auditory meatus; the basisphenoid is not perforated and separated from the vomer as in Lepus; the coronoid process is in the form of a tubercle; the clavicles are complete; ears short; limbs nearly equal; no tail.
Animals of small size and robust form; short-eared and tailless; two premolars above and below.
[NO. 418. LAGOMYS ROYLEI.]
Royle's Pika (Jerdon's No. 210).
NATIVE NAME.—Rang-runt, or Rang-duni, in Kunawur.—Jerdon.
HABITAT.—The Himalayan range, from Kashmir to Sikim.