General Notes. 97 



AMMOMYS AND OTHER COMPOUNDS OF MYS. 



In a paper " On the Generic Arrangement of the Australian Rats hitherto 

 referred to Conilurus" Thomas has established a new genus under the name 

 Amtnomys, taking as type Mus hirsutus Gould (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, 7th 

 ser., XVII, p. 84, Jan., 1906). Ammomys was originally proposed as a gen 

 eric name 75 years ago by Bonaparte, who applied it, in 1831, to the pine 

 mouse of the United States now placed in the subgenus Pitymy*. It is 

 consequently not available for any other group and especially for a second 

 genus in the same family. The group of Australian jerboa-rats of which 

 M. hirsutus is the type and which Thomas has shown to be closely related 

 to Notomys may therefore be known as Mesembriomys* in allusion to its 

 southern habitat. 



In my " Index Generum Mammalium " (N. Am. Fauna, No. 23, p. 55) 

 I listed about 350 compounds of pfc which had been published prior to 

 1904, and called attention to the fact that nearly eight per cent of all the 

 generic names of mammals were compounds of this word. A number of 

 additions have since been made to the list so that the total number is now 

 probably not far from 400. The effort to coin names with reference to some 

 special meaning has been responsible for several cases of duplication and 

 also for several terms of identical meaning as Ammomys and Psammomys 

 for sand mouse, Pitymy* and Pinemys for pine mouse, and Notomys and 

 Notiomys for southern mouse. Although the number of possible compounds 

 has by no means been exhausted, it is evident that the chances of dupli 

 cation are very great and hence it is important to take every precaution to 

 ascertain before publication whether proposed names have already ap 

 peared in print. T. S. Palmer. 



/j.ff-r)/j.ppla, south ; A*US, mouse. 



