﻿NEW RODENTS FROM BRITISH EAST AFRICA 

 By EDMUND HELLER 



NATURALIST, SMITHSONIAN AFRICAN EXPEDITION 



During the year just closed the writer accompanied Mr. Paul J. 

 Rainey's hunting party through British East Africa, for the pur- 

 pose of preserving the animals obtained by the expedition. The 

 collections thus secured have been donated by Mr. Rainey to> the 

 Smithsonian Institution, under whose auspices the natural history 

 work was accomplished. 



The collecting operations were limited chiefly to the preservation 

 of the mammals, special attention being devoted to the collecting of 

 the large carnivores and ungulates. The collection of mammals 

 secured under Mr. Rainey's direction and cooperation is of immense 

 size, the number of specimens aggregating some four thousand, 

 more than seven hundred of which are specimens of big game. 

 This additional material will add greatly to the facility of classifying 

 the African collection made by the Smithsonian African Expedition 

 under direction of Colonel Roosevelt two years ago, and which is now 

 under investigation by the writer. It is, however, deemed advisable 

 to publish at once any new species which may be detected while the 

 work is in progress. 



The present paper consists of descriptions of the new races of 

 rodents found in the Rainey collection. 1 It would not, however, 

 have been possible to determine this material without direct com- 

 parison with the types and specimens in the British Museum. For 

 the privileges of making such comparisons the writer is under obli- 

 gations to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, the curator in charge of the mam- 

 mal collections. Mr. Thomas has labored with such marked success 

 in accumulating and describing mammal material from Africa, th?.t 

 no satisfactory systematic work can be accomplished without direct 

 reference to the immense collection under his charge at the Natural 

 History Museum. 



1 For the sake of convenience a single form from Uganda is included. 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 59, No. 16 



