{Authors are responsible for nomenclature used.) 



The Scottish Naturalist 



No. 24.] 1913 [December 



A LIST OF BRITISH TERRESTRIAL MAMMALS. 

 [Compiled from the Brit. Mus. "Catalogue of 

 the Land-Mammals of Western Europe (Europe 



EXCLUSIVE OF RUSSIA)." By GERRIT S. MlLLER, 

 1912.] 



In no branch of systematic zoology have the researches of 

 the modern specialist worked greater havoc with our time- 

 honoured lists than in the case of the Mammals. This is 

 brought forcibly before us by the perusal of the Catalogue of 

 European Mammals recently issued by the British Museum. 

 The preparation of this catalogue, in which some 70 genera 

 and over 300 forms (species and subspecies) are diagnosed, 

 to say nothing of the synonymy and information on distribu- 

 tion, was entrusted to Mr Gerrit S. Miller, the well-known 

 American mammalogist. The work, of course, has been 

 done in Mr Miller's thoroughgoing way, and every page of 

 the volume bears the impress of the highly trained specialist. 

 For the benefit of those of our readers who are not familiar 

 with the recent march of events in the study of this group 

 of animals, we have compiled the following list of British 

 Terrestrial Mammals from this new European Catalogue. 

 The list speaks for itself. A noticeable feature is the large 

 number of forms of Voles and Mice peculiar to the 

 Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Some of these forms, 

 it must be said, depend practically on nothing but cranial 

 and dental characters not easily appreciated. Opinion 

 necessarily fluctuates as to the status of forms based on 

 such slight differences ; and already the investigation of a 

 24 2 L 



