ORDER RODENTIA: RODENTS 205 



the animal, believing its bite to be poisonous. It is he says, "very rare or only 

 got by accident here." ... It is strictly nocturnal. 



Lonnberg (1912, p. 100) records a specimen from Mau Escarp- 

 ment. 



Hollister (1919, p. 38) records specimens of ibeanus from the 

 Naivashi Escarpment and from Nakuru, and one of hindei from 

 Mount Kenya. 



"The first one of these animals I got was when I was stationed 

 at Nakuru; it came from the Aberdare side. It was taken out of a 

 hole in a tree by a Wanderobo .... I had no difficulty in getting 

 all I wanted, and at one time I had something like a dozen of them." 

 (Goldfinch, 1923, p. 1091.) 



Family MURIDAE: Old World Rats 



The limits of this family, as of the Cricetidae, are not definitely 

 settled. The two families are similar in the multiplicity of their 

 genera, species, and subspecies. While the Muridae were originally 

 confined to the Old World, several forms of Rattus and Mus have 

 attained world-wide distribution through transoceanic shipping and 

 are thoroughgoing pests. In the genus Rattus, two species endemic 

 on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean have become extinct, and 

 an Australian subspecies has apparently met the same fate. Single 

 representatives of two other Australasian genera (Mastacomys and 

 Zyzomys) are treated in the following pages. 



South Australian Spiny-haired Rat 



RATTUS CULMORUM AUSTRINUS Thomas 



Rattus culmorum austrinus Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 9, vol. 8, 

 p. 427, 1921. ("South Australia; type probably from Kangaroo Island." 

 However, Iredale and Troughton (1934, p. 74) suggest "Port Lincoln" as 

 the type locality.) 



More than a century has elapsed since the type specimen of this 

 rat was sent to the Zoological Society of London in 1841, and 

 there seem to be no records of appreciably later specimens. 



The fur is sparse, coarse, and more or less admixed with flattened 

 spines; it is longer in this than in the other subspecies, the hairs of 

 the back being commonly 20 mm. in length ; general color above gray 

 rather than fawn color; under parts equally gray. Head and body, 

 155 mm.; tail, 120 mm. (Thomas, 1921, p. 427; Jones, 1925, pp. 

 298-299.) 



Thomas (1921, p. 427) mentions six specimens besides the type, 

 and remarks: "Evidently a common rat in South Australia in the 

 forties, but whether it still exists in any out-of-the-way part of 

 the colony we have no evidence to show." 



