Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/108

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92
FAUNA
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Malayan bears are met in many parts and in considerable numbers. Martens and hog-badgers are also to be found.

Rodentia. Squirrels of many kinds, flying and others, are abundant. So are rats and mice of half a dozen species. Porcupines are seen and in many places hares are plentiful.

Primates. Monkeys of about a dozen varieties include the white-handed and white-browed gibbon (the well-known hoolook), the crab-eating species, and three or four sorts of leaf-monkeys. The existence of any large ape in Burma is doubted.

Insectivora. Among Insectivora may be mentioned shrews of several kinds, two species of gymnura, resembling large shrews, moles, and the very curious flying lemur.

Cheiroptera. Flying foxes and about twenty species of bats, haunting caves, hollow trees, ruined pagodas, and other old buildings are exceedingly common. They dwell in myriads in the caves near Moulmein and at Pāgăt in the Amherst district.

Cetacea. The Irrawaddy porpoise is found in the Irrawaddy as far north as Bhamo, and dolphins in tidal waters.

Edentata. The Malay and Chinese pangolin, or scaly anteaters, are specimens of this family.

Birds. Birds are of a myriad species, for a bare catalogue of which space cannot be found. Of game birds, most characteristic of Burma is the snipe which, in the swampy plains of Lower Burma and in irrigated fields elsewhere at the right season, abounds in unparalleled profusion. Over a hundred couple have fallen to a single gun in one day. The pintail and the fantail or common snipe of India are about equally numerous. Cotton or goose teal, not very plentiful, are widely distributed. The blue winged common teal, large and small whistling ducks, pintail, grey duck, pochard, and others frequent meres (jheels). The Brahminy duck keeps generally to sandbanks in rivers; as also does the bar-headed goose; while the grey lag goose