| OCR Text |
Show 1900.] MUS SYLVATICUS A N D ITS ALLIES. 409 the Carpathians ; or in the comparatively flat cultivated country at Gageni, at the foot of the Carpathians, north-west of Bucarest. Badde's description of tbe form found in tbe Caucasas, the Crimea, and in Western Siberia shows that a band of large sglvaticus-iike Mice extends eastwards right into Siberia until in the East they meet the subspecies 31. s. chevrieri; but, in the absence of specimens, it is impossible to lay clown the exact relationships of these forms, or to state where one ends or the other begins. A single young specimen from Montenegro seems to belong to M. s. princeps, and, as has been stated above, a set from Haute-Savoie are in certain respects intermediate between this form and M. s. wintoni, with which form it must intergrade in various localities. General Remarks. 31. s. princeps is undoubtedly a bright East European representative of 31. s. wintoni. For our knowdedge of it we are indebted to the late Mr. W . Dodson, whom, through the liberality of the late Lord Lilford, I was enabled to send on a collecting trip to Boumania in the spring of 1899. Mr. Dodson brought back a fine series of 44 examples of all ages and sexes, showing that this form occurs in the regions which he visited to the apparent entire exclusion of the smaller forms of Long-tailed Field-mice. This Mouse seems to breed in early spring, for amongst Mr. Dodson's specimens is a young one caught on April 15th, 1899, which, although attaining to a head and body length of 87 mm., was still in the slaty-coloured pelage of immaturity. 9. MUS SYLVATICUS ISLANDICUS. Mus islandicus, F. A. L. Thienemann, Nat. Bemerk. ges. auf einer Beise im Norden von Europa, p. 153 (1824). Type from Iceland? non existent; a co-type in Brit. Mus. of Nat. Hist., no. 45.11.15.17, received from Dr. Thienemann. Description. " M . cauda corpore ?equanti supra e fusco cinereus subtus albus." Seems to be smaller than ordinary M. sylvaticus. Distribution. Iceland. General Remarks. It has long been known that small rodents of some sort are found in Iceland, and there have been many discussions as to the exact nature of them. Some naturalists have supposed that they are Lemmings 1; but it is now certain that some forms both of 3Ius sylvaticus and of 3Ius musculus occur in the island. The Bev. H. H. Slater has been good enough to inform me that, while both species occur ou the coast, the former is the House-mouse and the only species of the interior. Thienemann's description, although it gives no characters whereby M. s. islandicus mav be distinguished from the Mice of other localities, and although he was himself of the opinion that his Mouse presented some of the characters both of Mus sylvaticus and of 3Ius musculus, clearly 1 See the remarks of J. Steenstrup in ' Videnskabelige Meddelelser fra den Naturhistoriske Forening i Kjobenhavn,' pp. 51-66 (1867), translated in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, iii. pp. 445 &c. (1869). |
