168 Merriam Descriptions of Nine New Mammals. 



Neotoma alleni sp. nov. 



Type No. 111$% cf ad. IT. S. National Museum (Department of Agricult- 

 ure collection). From Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, January 2(>, 1892. 

 Collected by E. W. Nelson. (Original number, 1700.) 



Measurements (in millimeters, taken in flesh by collector).- 

 Total length, 472 ; tail vertebrae, 225 ; hairs, 4 ; hind foot, 46 ; ear 

 (in dry skin) from anterior root, 29. 



General Characters. Size much larger than any species hereto- 

 fore described ; ears rather large and sparsely clothed with fine 

 hairs on the posterior surfaces ; tail shorter than the head and 

 body, blackish, sparsely haired, the annulations and scales dis- 

 tinctly visible above as well as below; upper parts deep tawny- 

 red or rusty. 



Color. Upper parts from forehead to base of tail deep fulvous 

 or tawny-ferruginous ; nose and sides of face mouse- gray, tinged 

 with bluish in some specimens ; under surface whitish, the tips 

 of the hair only being white and the plumbeous basal portion 

 showing through ; upper surfaces of feet whitish, more or less 

 clouded with dusky; tail blackish all round. 



Cranial Characters. Skull largest of the genus. Total length 

 of type, 53 ; basilar length (from inferior lip of foramen magnum 

 to posterior alveolus of incisor), 44; zygomatic breadth, 27.50; 

 length of upper molar series on alveolus, 11 ; cranium strongly 

 marked by muscular impressions ; superciliary ridge strongly 

 elevated and continued posteriorly across the outer half of the 

 parietals and interparietal to the occiput; interparietal sub- 

 quadrate with a postero-lateral wing on each side ; ascending 

 ramus of premaxillary short, barely reaching plane of lachry- 

 mals, and but slightly exceeding the nasals ; antorbital slit with 

 a tubercle at inferior base; audital bulke small, connected by a 

 bony process with the hamular .processes of the pterygoids; 

 molar series very large and heavy, about one-fourth the basilar 

 length of the skull ; first and second upper molars with a lateral 

 closed triangle on each side ; last lower molar shaped like the 

 letter S> as in Xenomys, but differing from Xenomys in having ;i 

 shallow reentrant angle on the outer side opposite the deep 

 fold from the inner side; infracondyloid notch of mandible 

 broadly open and but slightly concave. 



Mr. Nelson writes that in the neighborhood of Manzanillo this 



