| OCR Text |
Show 530 MR. W. L. SCLATER ON SOME INDIAN MURID.E. [June 17, The fur in this species is soft, not shining; it is above of a very dark slate-colour for three quarters of its length, the remaining quarter being of a chestnut colour ; posteriorly towards the tail the chestnut-coloured portion of the fur increases at the expense of the slate, so that its general appearance is very much redder posteriorly ; below, the fur is of a dirty greyish white, getting more and more reddish posteriorly, the bases of the hairs being still slate-coloured. The tail is somewhat longer than the body; it is slightly more lightly-coloured below than above, and is well-haired but not pencilled. The ear is very small, and is almost concealed by the very long fur all round it; it is further remarkable for a thin tuft of long hairs springing from the middle of the conch, a character which seems to distinguish this species from all other Indian Muridae, except Mus humei. The mammae are eight in number. The fifth toe of the front foot does not seem abnormally short as it is described to be in Mus humei; it reaches well beyond the bottom of the division between the 2nd and 3rd toes almost to a level with the joint of the 1st and 2nd phalanges of the 3rd toe ; the pads of the hind toe are large and not very well defined, but the proximal one, which is in all other Indian Mice rounded, is in this species distinctly oval and rat-like. The skull of this species (Plate XLIV. fig. 5) can be at once recognized by the fact that the external wall of the antorbital foramen is perfectly perpendicular. In this it resembles Mus humei, in which, however, the modification has gone further and the wall is concave. The zygoma itself is slightly concave and the anterior palatine foramen ends at the anterior line of the front molars. The hinder part of the hard palate formed by the pterygoids is characteristic, it forms two little concave cups separated in the median line and from each other by a slight ridge (cf. fig. 5 a). The posterior nasal opening is exceedingly wide, much wider than the corresponding opening in Mus urbanus, and the bulla is much more inflated. Altogether Mus erythrotis is a much more distinct species than most of the Indian Mice. Of the specimens in the Indian Museum six, including the type, are from Cherra Punji on the Khasia Hills, in Assam. Another specimen, a skin, unfortunately without a skull, procured by Col. Godwin- Austen in South Munipur, must also be referred to this species. The following are the measurements of the adult female above alluded to, in inches :- Head and body 2-85, tail 3-25, hind foot without claw -68, fore arm and hand "83, ear-conch "32, nose to ear (skull extracted) "82. 25. Mus METTADA (Gray); Thomas, P.Z.S. 1881, p. 550. This Rat has been fully described and figured by Blanford (J. A. S. B. xlvi. p. 290) and by Thomas, so that there is little to add to the descriptions already published. |
