60 MAMMALS OF THE 



Mus. 



It is to be regretted that Dr. Büttikofer had no time to 

 pay more attention to small mammals, especially Mice, 

 the more pity as judging after the large collections made 

 by English collectors in British Borneo, it seems that a 

 lot of Mice is living there. Considering the numerous clo- 

 sely allied species belonging to the genus Mus and descri- 

 bed from Borneo alone, it may be called at least hazard- 

 ously to bring the Mice-specimens under different species 

 if the collection at hand is not very large and if there 

 have not been secured series (adult and young individuals) 

 of every species , if possible collected all in one and the 

 same month or season and from the most different localities. 



In the present phase of the matter I think it vc'ise to 

 abstain from any specific distinction if not above all question. 



It may be allowed to intercalate here a couple of remarks 

 concerning Mr. Hose's highly interesting and very useful 

 descriptive account of the Mammals of Borneo, 1893. It 

 seems that Mr. Hose in his list of the Mice has overlooked 

 Mus lepturus ^ collected by Mr. Whitehead on the Kina 

 Balu (see Oldfield Thomas, P. Z. S. L. 1889, p. 234), for 

 in Hose's paper I fail to find it back again. 



In my descriptions of the Celebean Mice from Mr. van 

 Musschenbroek's collections ') I brought under the head 

 »Mice without spinous hairs'' (see p. 11, t. c.) a species 

 named by me Mus Hellwaldii and now 1 see to my great 

 surprise that Mr. Hose assures (p. 59, t. c.) : » Mus Hellivaldi 

 is a spiny rat". As the type of the species described by 

 me is a not spiny rat, it is evident that Mr. Hose's rat 

 belongs to another species : to what species however was not 

 to make out from the short description. In the Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History, 1894, p. 455, Mr. 0. 

 Thomas however described the species formerly named M. 

 Hellwaldi as a new species under the name Mus rajah: 



1) Notes from the Leyden Museum, 1879. 



rVotes froiïi the Leyden jMuseum , Vol. XIX. 



