212 



SOME CHINESE VEHTEMIATES. 



General Characters: Larger than M. (Eothe-nomys) melanogaster, pelage 

 long and soft, ears rather small. Color reddish brown above, and dark slate 

 washed with brownish below. Skull large, with rather prominent postorbital 

 shelf-like ridges; teeth essentially as in M. melanogaster, but the third upper molar 

 longer and with a long, narrow external heel. 



Color: Dorsal surface of body, forehead, and cheeks, nearly "tawny" 

 of Ridgway, with peculiar bright yellow brassy reflections. The individual 

 hairs are about 11 mm. long, dark slate-black except at the tips which are tawny 

 to tawny-ochraceous; mixed with these hairs are others of the same fine texture 

 but slaty black throughout, so that a general tawny appearance is produced in 

 which the black is less conspicuous than in those species that have the black hairs 

 longer than the general body hairs. The muzzle is a grizzled gray without tawny. 

 Sides of the body hardly lighter than the back, the color grading insensibly into 

 that of the ventral surface which is gray washed conspicuously, except on the 

 thighs and throat, with ochraceous buff. The slaty bases of the hairs show 

 through everywhere so as to darken the grayish of the belly but not to such 



an extent as to produce the blackish seen in 

 the ventral surfaces of M. melanogaster. 



Tail covered with short blackish hairs 

 above, which become slightly grayish below, so 

 that the tail is indistinctly bicolor. Feet with 

 short brown hairs, nearly Prout's brown, with 

 grayish reflections. The short round ears are 

 thinly covered with minute hairs of a similar 

 color. 



Skull: Compared with that of M. melano- 

 gaster, the skull is larger and heavier, with more 

 prominent ridges and angles. The postorbital 

 processes protrude as narrow shelf-like ridges, 

 and the zygomata are stouter and more bowed. 

 The palate is marked by two shallow longi- 

 tudinal grooves that end posteriorly each in a 

 deep pit or perforation of the palate. The 

 hinder margin in the type is practically straight across, though in another speci- 

 men it is slightly protuberant medially, yet not forming a spinous process. 



The enamel pattern of the first upper molar (Figs. A, B) consists of four 

 closed triangles, succeeded by a fifth space in which the two folds of opposite 



Microlus (Eothenomys) aurora. Type- 

 No. 7788. A, Enamel pattern of right 

 upper molars; B, Enamel pattern of 

 right lower molars. 



