32 ARKIV FÖR ZOOLOGI. BAND 8. N.O 10. 



brown with a shade of madder brown. The head is almost 

 umber brown (Rep. de coul. 304. 3), and on the upper neck 

 the colour is a mixture of this and that of the back. The legs 

 are umber brown, becoming much paler on the feet, so that 

 the före feet may be termed påle cinnamon. The lower parts 

 are white with a påle brown spöt on the chin and a rather 

 broad brown band across the lower neck near the chest. The 

 belly is white with a reddish brown wash. The line of demar- 

 cation towards the flanks is sharp. The whiskers are white. 



On the före feet at the thumb there is a sharply set off 

 area, fully 2 cm in length, and more than 1 cm in breadth, with 

 short adpressed white hair covering the inner margin and 

 adjoining parts of the front surface of the foot. (This stånds 

 probably in connection with the burrowing habits.) The claws 

 are horny white. 



In the year 1905 Thomas described a Paca from Sierra 

 de Merida, Venezuela, and named it Agouti sierrce. With this 

 description the present specimen agrees very nearly. The 

 differences between Thomas' description of A. sierrce and 

 this specimen are chiefly the following. Thomas speaks only 

 about three rows of white spöts, but he means then only the 

 principal rows because short series of spöts are also present 

 in A. sierrce on the posterior back, mesially of the uppermost 

 long row, and also in the inguinal region as I ha ve had the plea- 

 sure of sta ting on the specimens in Brit. Museum. The whitish 

 colour of the belly is »not sharply demarcated laterally» in 

 A. sierrce, and the top of the head is said to be »blackish 

 brown». It appears thus from the description to be much 

 darker than in the alpine Paca. The feet of A. sierrce appear also 

 to be lighter than those of A. sierrce andina. The present 

 author has also recently had the pleasure of seeing quite a 

 series of A. sierrce, and they were all very dark, almost blackish 

 brown, and the white spöts stood in consequence of this very 

 sharply out. 



With regard to the smoothness and proportions of the 

 skull the present specimen agrees completely with A. sierrce. 

 Although the type of the latter was a female it had greater 

 zygomatic breadth (viz. 82 mm) than this male specimen 

 (76,5 mm). But this specimen has longer and narrower nasals 

 (44 X 20 mm) than A. sierrce (41 X 22,5 mm). The length 

 of the broadened surface of the zygoma is in the latter 64 mm, 



