To the Editor of the "Nortn-Cuixa Dairy News."
Sir,—The skins of a wild animal were shown to me the other day by a Chinese friend. The Chinese call it "Flying Fox," it evidently leaps from tree to tree, hence the name. The real flying fox has bat-like ings, this one has not that distinetion. This kind I have not seen described in any of the books on wild animals which I have read.
The skin, certainly, resembles more a fox than any other skin I know of, although the {ail is not bushy like a fox's tail.
The length of the skin from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail is one foot and seven inches. Tt has fine, long, dark-reddish fur under the whole of the body and on the upper part of the back, round the shoulders. lower part of the back has dark-grey fur, the face and the throat' also has grayish fur. The fur is about 1} to 2 inches long. The tail has dark-reddish fur on it, it is very long in proportion to the length of the body, being one foot and seven inches in. length. The animal is a native of Szechuan.
Perhaps some of your readers might be able to recognize the animal by the description given above?
The thought has occurred to me that this may be the real skin of the flying fox, with bat-like wings, portion of the skin having been cut off, that part that forms the wings and afterwards sewn to the sKin*of the body of the animal, being shaped to resemble the skin of the ordinary fox, for trade pur: poses. I noticed when the skins were turned inside out, that pieces of skin had been joined to them to bring them to a certain shape and size. This could not be detected by
side. looking at the skins from the fur I am, ete., M. F. Hankow, Aug. 5.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.