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Show i88I.J INDIAN SPECIES OF MUS. 551 Mus mettada, Blanford, J. A . S. B. xlvi. (2) p. 290, pi. i. (skull, foot, &c.) (1877). "Metdd" of Tank-diggers. HaB. Madras Presidency. Fur long, soft, and spineless. General colour above grey, below white. Hairs above dark slate-colour for seven eighths of their length, then yellowish white, the extreme tips black or dark brown; some have all the distal quarter of the hair black; these darker hairs, as usual, are more numerous along the centre of the back. Belly-hairs slate-colour for their basal three fourths; the tips white, hiding the slate. The line of separation between the upper and lower colours, as a rule, is not well marked. Mammae 8, two pectoral and two inguinal pairs. Tail about the length of the head and body, varying, in our specimens, from a 5 of an inch longer to £ an inch shorter. Hairs on the tail numerous, rather longer than in most other species, but not forming a pencil at the tip; colour brown above and white below. Ears large, rounded, clothed inside and out with short shining hairs. Feet white or pale brown. Caecum wide and rather short, measuring just an inch in the only specimen (an adult male) in which it has been preserved. The skull has been so well figured and described by Mr. Blanford (I. c.) that there is no need for m e to enter into any details concerning it. Dimensions. Ahmednagar. Madras. a.cS b.rf. Head and body 4*5 4*56 Tail 4-2 4-70 Hind foot P0 1*05 Forearm and hand .. 1*25 P30 Ear-conch, length .... -60 *60 Nose to ear P15 1*15 There are, as usual, five pads on the fore feet; but on the hind feet a most remarkable difference is observable. All other species of the genus that I have ever seen, have six well-defined pads, the last always strongly marked, linear in the Rats and circular in the Mice ; but in this species the sixth pad is always, and the fifth frequently, suppressed. Of eight spirit-specimens that I have examined, three have only four, with the position of the fifth very faintly indicated in one of them ; the other five (the specimens from Ahmednagar referred to in M r . Blanford's paper) have five well-defined circular pads. In one of these last there is an extremely faint indication of the normal sixth pad; but so faint is it that a lens is needed to make out its limits at all. This suppression of the hinder foot-pads is, judging from analogy, most probably owing to the Metad's habitually moving and sitting, more or less, like a Jerboa, because we find that, in all genera doing this, the foot-pads are either suppressed behind or |