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Show 40 DR. O. THOMAS ON MYOXUS ELEGANS. [Feb. 3, clear fulvous-orange; the same colour reappears in the hind part of the abdomen and the under tail-coverts. But the greatest difference between our new species and A. atricapilla is to be seen in the structure and colour of the back-feathers and the scapulars, these being very narrow, elongate and lanceolate, and of a peculiar sea-green colour, with hoary margins, in A. atricapilla; they are broader, shorter, much less lanceolate, and of a pure and uniform bronze-green in A. rutenbergi. The measurements in both birds are nearly the same. The fine adult type specimen of A. rutenbergi, from which this description is taken, is in the Hamburg Museum of Natural History. I have named the species after m y much-lamented young countryman, Mr. Christian Rutenberg, who was murdered by the savage tribes of the west coast of Madagascar. I see from his diary, that he had been eager in collecting and preparing birds ; and it is certainly much to be regretted that in all probability his collections are lost. Dr. Reichenow, of the Berlin Museum, to whose experienced eye I have submitted this little Heron, fully participates in m y opinion of its being different from anv of the congeneric species. 2, On the Myoxus elegans of Temminck. By OLDFIELD T H O M A S , F.Z.S., Assistant in the Zoological Department, British Museum. [Received January 20, 1880.] The British Museum has lately received a specimen of a small Dormouse obtained by Mr. H . Pryer near Yokohama, which agrees in every respect with Temminck's Myoxus elegans, described and figured in the 'Fauna Japonica' (1842). This name had, however, been unfortunately preoccupied by Ogilby for a South-African species \ and now stands as one of the synonyms of Graphiurus capensis, F. Cuv.2 I am therefore under the necessity of renaming the Japanese form ; and I would propose for it the name of Myoxus lasiotis, the tufts of hair at the base of its ears being its most noticeable external character. This animal by its external form appears to be, as Temminck remarks, very closely allied to the common European Muscardinus avellanarius, agreeing more or less with that species both in size, colour, and proportions; but on examining its viscera, 1 find that there is no trace whatever of that extraordinary complication of the stomach, unique among Mammalia, which has led to the retention, by most recent zoologists, of Kaup's genus Muscardinus, formed for the reception of the common Dormouse. The absence of this complication proves that Myoxus lasiotis is not so nearly allied to M. avellanarius as Temminck supposed, 1 P. Z. S. 1838, p. 5. ? Cf. Alston, P.Z. S. 1875, p. 317. |