244 Palmer — Generic and Family Names of Rodents. 



an aid in selecting the proper name in such cases and to help in 

 determining questions of priority, it has seemed best to give 

 under eacti group all the family and subfamily names based 

 on genera belonging to it. Full references have also been in- 

 serted, inasmuch as authors seldom indicate the place where 

 such names were first published. Groups first described as full 

 families and afterwards reduced to subfamilies have merely a 

 reference to the original description, but those first introduced 

 as subfamilies and afterwards raised to family rank have refer- 

 ences to both places of publication. This part of the list has 

 been limited strictly to names ending iit ' idx ' or ' inse^'' the only 

 exception being old designations with the closely related termina- 

 tion ' ma.' Here, as elsewhere, the object has been merely to bring 

 together under each family all the available names, without at- 

 tempting to discriminate between synonyms and names which 

 have a claim to recognition.' 



This list is supplementary to a complete alphabetical index of 

 the genera of mammals, containing full references to descriptions 

 and localities, which is now almost ready for the press. The data 

 relating to the Rodentia are here grouped under families and 

 published in condensed form for the purpose of inviting sug- 

 gestions and criticisms as to arrangement, type species, and 

 grouping of genera. The list is therefore merely an experiment. 

 Although the names have been brought together, much remains 

 to be done in working out the synonymy of types, but such work 

 properly belongs to the specialist and the reviser of groups. 

 When this has been done some examples of duplication of names 

 will probably be found even more striking than the case of the 

 lemmings, in which a single species {Mils torquatus Pallas) has 

 served as the basis for five or six nominal genera. 



As a help in distinguishing the names, extinct genera are 

 printed in italics ; an asterisk (*) indicates that the original 

 description has not been seen; a dagger (f) that the name is 

 preoccupied, and a double dagger (J) prefixed to a family or 

 subfamily that the name is not available, either because the 

 genus on which it was based is preoccupied or because it is 

 antedated by some other valid name. 



^ Forsyth Major has recently proposed Nesomywfe for certain Old "World 

 mice usually classed under Cricetinx ; but as he does not give the limits 

 of this group Thomas' classification is necessarily followed, although 

 Nesomyinx may be entitled to subfamily rank as much ?is the group under 

 which it is placed, 



