On the Occurrence r/Acomys in Cyprus. 565 



different. Dr. Johnston's species is Arabella tricolor, Mont., 

 whereas the present is a Notocirrus, the structure of head, 

 foot, and bristles all diverging. 



Another very active small form was procured under a 

 stone in a tide-pool at Herm, but unfortunately it has been 

 lost. The head was smoothly rounded in front and of a 

 brighter reddish orange than the rest of the body, which 

 was dark orange with the dorsal blood-vessel shining through. 

 The segments were very minutely dotted as if punctured. 

 The tail had two longer and two shorter cirri. 



LXXVII. — On the Occurrence 0/ Acomys in Cyprus. 

 By Dorothy M. A. Bate. 



While in Cyprus in 1902 I procured a number of specimens 

 of a spiny mouse, a genus which had not previously been 

 lecovded fiom this island. On comparing it with the species 

 in the collection of the British Museum, it proves to differ 

 fi-om all these, and apparently belongs to a hitherto undescribed 

 form, which 1 therefore propose to name 



Acomys nesiotes, sp. n. 



Size and o-eneral appearance as in A. dimidiatus, but at 

 once distinguishable by its very much shorter tail, which in 

 the mature animal measures considerably less than the head 

 and body, while the reverse usually obtains in ^, dimidiatus. 



The Cypriote mouse is represented by a series of thirteen 

 specimens— six, caught in May, June, and July, being very 

 young ; one, caught in October, is full-grown, though still 

 letainino- its immature coloration ; and the remaining six are 

 fully adult. In no. 156, which is taken as the type of the 

 species the whole of the underparts and the upper surfaces of 

 the hands and feet are pure white, and there is a patch of 

 lio-ht hair at the external base of the ear-conch. The flanks 

 aJ'e " wood- brown"* and the back a mixture of " wood- 

 brown " and grey, the latter more predominant than in 

 A dimidiatus!^ The speckled appearance of the greater part 

 of" the dorsal region is due to the colour of the hairs and 

 spines which are pale grey or almost colourless for the 

 oreater part of their length, and tipped with dark grey or 



* Colours o-iveu in inverted commas are taken from ' A Nomeuclature 

 of Colour.^,' by Robert Ridgway (Boston, 188(5). 



