120 Mr. O. Thomas on a 
hairs slaty at base, but the slaty quite hidden by the whitish 
tips, so that the colour is not a mixed slaty and white, as is 
more usual in shrews; line of demarcation on sides fairly 
well marked. Hands and feet white. Tail greyish white 
above, white below, with a fair number of the usual longer 
bristles, 
Skull very like that of C. dlensis in its small size and short 
muzzle, ‘Teeth about as in that species, the incisors less 
prominent than in C. russula. 
Dimensions of the type (measured on skin) :— 
Head and body 57 mm.; tail 35; hind foot 12°5; 
ear 9. 
Skull: condylo-incisive length 17:5; basal length 15:5 ; 
greatest breadth 8°3 ; front of 2! to back of m® 7:8; front of 
p* to back of m® 4:5; tip of a to tip of p* 4; back of 7 to 
front of p* 1°8 ; breadth of palate across m? 5:6, 
Hab. Ramleh, 8.E. of Jaffa, Palestine. 
Type. Adult skin and skull. B.M. no. 19. 4.11.9. Col- 
lected and presented by Major Maurice Portal. 
This pretty little grey shrew has clearly nothing to do with 
the C. russula group, of which a local form—C. 7. judatca— 
was described recently. C. russula basa much longer muzzle, 
with larger and more dominant incisors, while in the present 
form the incisors are comparatively small. C. ilensts, a species 
described by Miller from a specimen now in the British 
Museum, seems really its nearest ally, and of this, besides the 
type, we have a considerable series from Djarkent (2iickbei?) 
and Samarkand (Carruthers). These, however, all have 
shorter tails and are of a decidedly darker grey, not unlike 
that of European C. russula. 
On the other hand, there have recently been received from 
Baluchistan, collected by Col. Ernest Hotson, four shrews 
very similar in proportions to C. portal’, and, while rather 
variable in colour, averaging much lighter than C. ¢lensis, 
one of them, in fact, being of precisely the same pale grey as 
the type of C. portal. These specimens perhaps indicate 
that this pale shrew will be found to extend right across 
Persia, but until that country is better explored, tiis cannot 
be definitely asserted. 
Of older known species none seems to enter into question, 
as they are mostly larger—at least as large as C. russula,—the 
only doubtful one being Sorex gmelini, Pallas, from “ Hyr- 
cania,” the country on the §.H. coast of the Caspian Nea. 
It, however, would seem to be more strongly drabby, 7. e. 
as in russula and ilensis, while its generally insufficient 
