302 Mr. 0. Thomas on new 



yellowish grey — restricted in tliat form to the centre of tlie 

 back — is sin-ead over the whole of the upper surface, so tliat 

 the pink area along the sides is reduced to a narrow strip, or 

 even occasionally absent, tlie rufous of the forearms and hips 

 being in sucli cases isolated from each other. Base of tail 

 coloured like back. Hands slightly suffused with rufous ; 

 feet yellowisli white. 



Dimensions of the type (measured in skin) : — 



Head and body 215 mm. ; tail 180; hind foot 53. 



Skull : greatest length 53 ; length of upper tooth-series 9*7. 



Ilab. Between N. end of L. Rudolf and L. Steplianie. 

 Type from the latter. Alt. 2000'. 



T^j)e. Adult male. Original number 132. Collected 

 IStii August, 1905. 



Tiiese ground-squirrels are by no means easy to sort into 

 geographical races, owing partly to their variability and 

 partly to tiieir liability to bleaching, the black parts of the 

 fur bleaching through rufous and fawn to pale sandy, so as to 

 give a wholly different appearance to specimens killed before 

 or after the moult. But by a careful comparison of specimens 

 all in fresli fur I find tliat the series from the Stephanie area 

 differ sufficiently on the average from those representing true 

 rutilus to make a local name advisable, though some examples 

 show evidence of intergradation. The other named forms iu 

 this group — brachi/otus, dahagalla, I'ntensus^ and saturalus — 

 are all further off, both geogra])liically and zoologically, than 

 the true rutilus of Eastern Abyssinia. 



Otomys tt/pus fortior, subsp. n. 



By the kindness of Dr. Lampert, of the Stuttgart Museum, 

 I have been entrusted with the loan of the typical skull of 

 Hcuglin's Ot'eomys ti/pus, and I regret to find that it is after 

 all ot the same group as my Otonii/s JJeyeni, Heuglin's descrip- 

 tion of its incisive grooves proving to be grossly inaccurate. 

 Their true number and positions are as described in 0. Degem^ 

 and this latter must, I fear, be regarded as a synonym of 

 O. typus. 



But the Kaffa form obtained by Mr. Zaphiro, thougli 

 similar to typus and Dcgeni in all essential respects, is sutii- 

 ciently larger to make me think it should have a special 

 subspecific name. The skull, as a whole, is markedly larger 

 than that of Degeni, which agrees with what remains of the 

 specimen of typus. The worn surftice of the upper molars is 

 S"5 mm. in length, as compared with 7*7 in the other two. 

 The breadth of the two upjjcr incisors, taken together, is 

 J.' 7 mm. in /ortiorj -I'l in Degeni, and 3" 7 in typus. 



