8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



ELEPHANTULUS PHiEUS, new species 



Masai Elephant Shrew 



Type from Njoro O Solali, Sotik District, British East Africa; 

 adult male; number 162074, U. S. Nat. Mus. ; collected by J. Alden 

 Loring, June 26, 1909; original number, 6441, 



Characters. — Much darker dorsal coloration than in pulcher and 

 with larger body size. 



Coloration. — Above umber brown, lightly overlaid with black- 

 tipped hairs ; sides of body and head grayer and lacking the brown- 

 ish ; on the snout the gray color encroaching on the umber, which is 

 confined to a median streak on the snout. Eye-ring white and con- 

 tinued posteriorly as a diagonal postocular stripe, bordered below by 

 a dark-brown streak which breaks through the white eye-ring and 

 reaches the eye. A fulvous patch behind each ear. Upper lip, undef 

 parts, and feet white, the white being sharply contrasted where it 

 meets the tawny gray of the lower sides. Hair everywhere dark 

 slate at base. Tail dark brown above, grayish below ; the long hair 

 of the rump lacking at the base of the tail, where a triangular naked 

 area is exposed when the hair is disturbed. 



Measurements. — Head and body, 133 mm. ; tail, 133 ; hind foot, 

 33. Skull: condylo-incisive length, 36.5; zygomatic breadth, 20; 

 nasals, 14; interorbital constriction, 6; length of palate, 18.8; length 

 of upper tooth-row, 17.5; condylo-incisive length of mandible, 27; 

 length of lower tooth-row, 15.5. 



This form is closely allied to pulcher, from which it dififers in the 

 darker umber-brown color, being "gray-fawn" only on the sides. 

 Pulcher is described as having the under fur of the under parts gray, 

 and, if this is correct, phccus differs greatly in its dark slate under 

 fur. The series of six topotypes in the collection is uniform in 

 color with the type. 



