1906.] Allen, Mammals from Hainan, China. 475 



the various species and subspecies of the group, nor is there any refer- 

 ence to Swinhoe's Hainan specimens, which are hence perhaps not 

 now in the collection of the British Museum, although two Hainan 

 specimens were commented upon by Anderson (Anatom. and Zool. 

 Researches, 1878, p. 240, under Sciurus castaneoventris) , which ap- 

 pear to be the specimens described by Swinhoe. 



Tamiops gen. nov. 

 PLATE LIX, FIGS 1-4. 



Type, Sciurus macdellandi Horsfield (more strictly, Tamiops macclellandi 

 huinanus subsp. nov.). 



In southern India and southern China, from Assam east to Foochow 

 and Formosa, and south to the Malay Peninsula and Hainan, is found 

 a group of small, semiterrestrial, slender-tailed squirrels which ex- 

 ternally, including the color-pattern, seem hardly distinguishable 

 from the little striped ground squirrels of northern Asia and North 

 America constituting the genus Eutamias. The broad, short -nosed 

 skull, however, is distinctly of the sciurine type, and not like that of 

 Eutamias and the other true ground squirrels; but the teeth prove 

 to be quite different from those of typical Sciurus (type, 5. vulgaris 

 Linn.) . It was therefore a matter of surprise in working up the Hainan 

 representatives of the S. macdellandi group to find that .the latest 

 writers on the group still refer them to Sciurus, while recognizing such 

 Old World sciurine genera as Ratufa, Funambulus, Rhino s ciurus , 

 etc. It has seemed proper, therefore, to recognize this well-marked 

 group as of generic (or at least subgeneric) value, for which I propose 

 the name Tamiops, in recognition of its external resemblance to 

 Tamias, and more especially to Eutamias, with the following characters: 



In small size, slender, narrow tail, and pattern of coloration, including not only 

 the five dorsal stripes but in the details of the head-pattern, like Eutamias; 

 general form of the skull sciurine short and broad with short rostrum like 

 Sciurus, but with the molariform teeth structurally different. In 5. vulgaris 

 the outer border of p 2 , m 1 , and m 2 , is crenulated, there being in addition to the 

 two main cusps a very low cusp between them and a fourth anterior cusp 

 slightly larger than the very small median one, resulting in what may be termed 

 a crenulated border. In Tamiops m 1 and m 2 have only the two main cusps, 

 without the smalley median and anterior cusplets. In Tamiops p 2 has an ad- 

 ditional anterior small cusp, making three on the outer border, while in Sciurus 

 there is in addition to these three a minute cusplet between the posterior two. 

 M 3 is essentially the same in both groups. In the lower jaw in Sciurus there is 

 on the exterior border of the crown an incipient cusp between the two main 

 cusps of each tooth of the series, which is entirely lacking in Tamiops; on the 

 inner border the pattern is essentially similar in each. (See PI. LIX, Figs. 47.) 



