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Show 1 9 0 5 .] MAMMALS FROM PERSIA AND ARMENIA. 5 2 5 Type : C alomyscus b a il w a r d i . A beautiful Gerbille-coloured, long-eared, tufted-tailed mouse of about the size of Mus musculus. Fur soft and fine, hairs of back about 7 mm. in length. General colour above a beautiful " pinkish buff," darkened on the back by the tips of the hairs being black, clear and rich along the flanks and down the outer sides of the legs to the ankles. Whole of under surface pure sharply contrasted white, which ascends rather high up on the cheeks, nearly to the eyes, covers the whole of the fore limbs, ascending almost to the shoulder, and the inner side of the hind limbs. Head buffy, slightly paler than back. Ears very large, practically naked, pale brown, their few fine scattered hairs white ; a small white patch above the base of their anterior margin. Upper surface of hands and feet pure white. Fifth hind toe long, reaching to the middle of the terminal phalanx of the fourth. Tail long, well haired, the hairs lengthening terminally into a pencil; pure white below, above whitish proximally, darkening terminally to blackish. Skull with the nasal region long and narrow. Interorbital space broad, smooth, slightly convex, its edges scarcely marked, no ridges developed on the parietals. Anterior plate of zygomata not projected forwards. Palatal foramina ending half their own length in front of the molars. Dimensions of the type (measured in the flesh):- Head and body 78 mm.; tail 87 ; hind foot 20'5 ; ear 21 5. Skull-greatest length 26 ; basilar length 19*2 ; greatest breadth 13-8; nasals 1 0 -1 x 3 -2 ; interorbital breadth 4 '4 ; brain-case breadth 12; interparietal 3"1 X 8'7 ; palatilar length 10'5; diastema 6'9 ; palatal foramina 4-5 x l ' 8 ; length of upper molar series 3-3. Hab. and Type as above. 11 Trapped among barren rocks on mountain-side above the Mala-i-Mir marsh."-R. B. W. The discovery of this beautiful animal is of extreme interest, as it belongs to a group hitherto believed to be exclusively American and Malagasy, "with the exception of Cricetus and Mystromys. This group of biserial-toothed Muridse is apparently a very primitive one *, and was no doubt spread widely over the Old World as well as the New before the triserial Murince were developed and beat it in the struggle for existence throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. But they penetrated neither to Madagascar nor America, in which countries the Muridse are all of the biserial group. Now in Calomyscus we have another Cricetine * Several fossil members of this group, Eocene and Miocene, are known, and are all referred by palaeontologists to Cricetodon Lartet, but if still existing they would apparently represent quite a number of what mammalogists now call genera, i am indebted to Dr. Forsyth Major for showing me a series of representative specimens of the fossil forms. |