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Show 1900.] Mus SYLVATICUS A N D ITS ALLIES. 413 Antedates Mus wagneri var. major, N. Severtzoff, 1876 (see under M. s. arianus), and Mus decumanus var. major, B. Hoffmann, Abh. Zool. Mus. Dresden, 1887, p. 18. 3Ius chevrieri, E. Biichner, Wiss. Bes. der von N. M. Przewalski nach Ceutral-Asien unternommenen Beisen &c, Saugethiere, p. 92 (1889). Type: unknown (? in the Caucasian Museum at Tiflis). Distinguishing Characteristics. I have no specimens of this Mouse at my disposal. Badde describes it as a large sglvaticus, resembling, but distinguishable from, the larger Eastern European Mice. Distribution. Of the distribution of this, the Western Siberian representative of 31. s. princeps, we have no exact knowledge, but we know that Herr Badde found Mus sylvaticus, of one form or another, wherever he journeyed in Western Siberia. With this form I must place, at least provisionally, Przewalski's specimens as described by Herr Biichner. Przewalski found Mus sylvaticus in the mountains of Ganssu, Ala-schan, to a height of 8000 metres, and it is recorded for the Muni-ula, where it lives in holes in meadow-lands. 14. MUS SYLVATICUS ARIANUS. Mus sylvaticus, F. de Filippi, Viagg. Persia, p. 344 (1865); K. Satunin, Mammals of Caucasus, p. 305, &c. Mus erythronotus, W . T. Blanford, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. xvi. p. 311 (±875); Eastern Persia, Zool. & Geol. vol. ii. pp. 54-55, pi. v. fig. 3 (1876); Mammals of Yarkand Expedition, p. 54(1879) (nee 3Ius erythronotus, C. J. Temminck, Fauna Japonica, Mamm. p. 50, 1850). Mus arianus, W . T. Blanford, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vii. p. 162 (1881). " Mus wagneri, var. major (M. tokmak n. sp. ?)," Severtzoff, Proc. Mosc. Soc. Nat. vol. viii. p. 2 (1873), translated by J. Carl Craemers in Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, xviii. 1876 (see p. 53); Blanford, Mammals of Yarkand Mission, loc. cit.; E. Biichner, op. cit. p. 90; W . L. Sclater, P. Z. S. 1890, p. 528. Typical series. Four specimens from Kohrud, between Isfahan and Teheran, in Northern Persia, altitude 7000 feet (Indian Museum at Calcutta), and one, no. 74.11.21.22, anno 1872 (British Museum Collection). Nomenclature and Synonymy. The name erythronotus Blanford, being preoccupied by erythronotus Temminck, the former naturalist renamed his species arianus, under which name I have to designate, for the present at least, the Mice from very widely separated localities and which probably include several distinct subspecies. Severtzoff's subspecific name is preoccupied by Badde's Mus sylvaticus var. major. 31us wagneri itself is a 3Ius musculus-like Mouse. Severtzoff's original description is, as Blanford has pointed out (Mamm. Yark. Missiou, p. 54), insufficient to enable his species to be recognized, and it is far from clear wiiether " 31. tokmak " is proposed as a name, Tokmak being " tbe name of a town between Vernoe and Auliata, lying north-west of Lake Issik and nearly due |
