206 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



To this Jones adds (1925, p. 299) : "I know of no recent records 

 or specimens of the species. So far, the out-of-the-way place has 

 not been found by collectors, and this fact should prove a stimulus 

 to our field naturalists." 



A. S. Le Souef writes (in Hit., February 15, 1937) that this par- 

 ticular race is probably extinct, but that one or more of the other 

 subspecies are still numerous at times. 



[The other subspecies are: Rattus culmorum culmorum Thomas 

 and Dollman, of Queensland; R. c. youngi Thomas, of Moreton 

 Island, Queensland; R. c. vallesius Thomas, of the interior of New 

 South Wales.] 



Captain Maclear's Rat 



RATTUS MACLBARI (Thomas) 



Mus macleari Thomas, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1887, p. 513, 1887. (Christmas 



Island, eastern Indian Ocean.) 

 FIGS.: Thomas, op. cit., pi. 42 (colored); Andrews, C. W., 1900, pi. 2 bis, 



figs. 1, 3, 6, 7, 8 (skull and teeth). 



This rat, isolated on Christmas Island, some 200 miles south of 

 Java, the nearest land, is believed to have become extinct in the 

 early years of this century. It is apparently nearest related to 

 Rattus xanthourus of Celebes and R. everetti of the Philippines, 

 which it somewhat resembles in appearance. 



About the size of a Roof Rat, it is described as grizzled rufous 

 brown above, the belly but little lighter, pale rufous; longer hairs 

 black, feet dark like the body. A striking feature is said to be the 

 prominent long black hairs of the lower back, which, as in the other 

 related rats, project far beyond the shorter portions of the pelage. 

 The tail, which equals or slightly exceeds the length of head and 

 body, is dark in its proximal half, white in its distal portion, and 

 scaly. The skull is large and strongly built, with beaded supra- 

 orbital edges, and the anterior edge of the zygomatic plate projects 

 forward conspicuously. Measurements: head and body, 235-240 

 mm.; tail, 246-267; hind foot, 48.5-50; ear, 17-17.5; basal length 

 of skull, 47.5 ; zygomatic width, 26.2. Mammae four. 



This island rat was first made known by Thomas (1887) from a 

 specimen brought from Christmas Island by Captain Maclear of 

 the British surveying-ship Flying-fish, who procured it on his visit 

 there in 1886. In the following year additional specimens were 

 secured by J. J. Lister, who, as naturalist, accompanied a second 

 expedition to the island on H. M. S. Egeria. At that time the island 

 was uninhabited and covered with jungle and forest. Of about 40 

 square miles in area, its highest point is about 1,200 feet above sea 

 level; geologically, it is largely of coral limestone resting on a basis 



