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Show 1900.] MUS SYLVATICUS A N D ITS ALLIES. 415 comparison with a series of specimens from Western Europe. It is very unfortunate that, whereas Mr. Blanford's original description was taken from the Kohriid specimens, he afterwards obtained his cranial characters from a specimen from Wakhan, which may have belonged to quite a different subspecies. At all events the cranial characters as laid down by him, and in particular that of the size of the last upper molar, will not apply to his original specimens (skull no. 74.11.21.22, d , Persia). Distribution. So far as our present information goes, and the name being used in the wider sense indicated above, it would appear that 3Ius s. arianus has a wide distribution. Mr. Blanford remarks ' that " a species apparently identical with the Persian Mouse was collected by the late Dr. Stoliczka2 in Wakhan, a province on the Upper Oxus belonging to Afghanistan, and at Kashgar, in Eastern Turkestan ; and the same form has since been found by Major Biddulph aud Dr. Scully at Gilgit, in the Upper Indus Valley." Blyth3 recorded it from Cherra Punji, India; while Herr Biichner l identified with this Mouse the specimens brought by Przewralski from the rivers Zauma, Ssairam-mor, and Chapzagaigol, in Central Tian-schan, and from the southern slopes of the mountains of the latter name, to a height of 7500 feet. It is found as a " steppe-inhabitant in the Ural, as well as on the Kirgies Steppes; but in Turkestan, where M. musculus is absent, M. wagneri is the house-mouse. It is numerous in the Chimkentand Tashkent houses, where it does not differ at all from the Kirgies-Steppe specimens."5 De Filippi6 identified the Persian House-mouse as 31us sglvaticus, and states that the same species was brought from Shiraz by Marquis Doria. Mr. Blanford, however, declares that a specimen which he obtained from Shiraz is certainly 31. bactrianus. Mr. Blanford had seen no specimens from Northern Persia, and thought that " although the house-mouse there may be M. sglvaticus, it is quite as probable that it is 31. bactrianus.'" " Even if, however, 31. bactrianus prove to be found in houses throughout Persia, M. sylvaticus must also be included in the fauna, as it was found by Menetries common on the parts of the Talish Mountains not covered by trees, and it is said by Eichwald to be abundant in Georgia." "Eichwald includes 31. musculus L., from Wakhan the breadth exceeds that of the molar; the third upper molar of 31. sylvaticus is about one-fourth the size of the second, whereas in the Wakhan and Gilgit skulls the proportion is one half. It should be noted that Mr. Blanford had only one skull of European M. sylvaticus at his disposal, and only the figures of the types from which he had described M. erythronotus, the specimens themselves having been mislaid. See also pages 54 & 55 of Mr. Blanford's ' Mammals of the Yarkand Expedition' (1879). 1 J. A. S. B. vol. xlviii. pt. ii. (1879). 2 " At Panja in Wakhan"-Blanford, J. A. S. B. xii v. p. 108 (1875). 3 J. A. S. B. xxiv. p. 721, & xxxii. p. 348. 1 Op. cit. pp. 90-91. 6 Blanford, M a m m . Yarkand, p. 54. ,! Op. cit. p. 344. |
