406 On a neio Dormouse from Asia Minor. 



It frequents the stony kopjes of the Witwatersrand, spending 

 the day in holes under rocks and boulders, and coming out to 

 feed at dusk. I have only once found it lying out in the 

 daytime. 



Like other Pronolagi, it frequently returns to the same 

 spot to deftecate ; hence its presence in a locality can often 

 be detected by the piles of droppings on the hill-sides. It is a 

 very retiring species, and seems little known among local 

 sportsmen, although it occurs right up to the outskirts of 

 Johannesburg. 



Its short ears, heavy build, and general pose at once recall 

 the European rabbit. It is very fleet on foot ; in fact, the 

 " red hare" (a collective name for the members of the genus 

 Pronolagus) is regarded by sportsmen as the fastest of the 

 South-African hares. 



The uterus of the type specimen contained a single large 

 leveret. 



University College, Johannesburg, 

 September 1907. 



LV. — On a neio Dormouse from Asia Minor, with Remarhs 

 on the Suhgenus " Dryomys." By Oldfield ThOMAS. 



In 1906* I formed a special subgenus to contain the dormouse 

 previously known as Eliomys nitedula, Pallas (syn. E. dryas, 

 Schr.), and gave it tbe name of Dryomys; but I now find 

 that this name is preoccupied t, and would propose to replace 

 it by Dyromys, an anagram of the same word. 



Since I formed the subgenus there has been discovered the 

 large but nearly related Central-Asian species to which I 

 applied the specific name angelus, and Mr. Gerrit Miller has 

 drawn my attention to additional points of distinction between 



* P. Z. S. 1906, ii. p. 348. 



t " Dryomys parvulus, Tscliudi, Fauna Peruana, p. 179, lam. xiii. 

 fig. L" "Philippi, An. Mus. Chile, Murideos de Chile, p. 20 (1900). 



Although this is, no doubt, merely an erroneous rendering of Brt/- 

 mnmys, yet, as it occurs with a specific name attached and a reference 

 both to a description and figure, it seems to be technically too valid as a 

 name to be used again for another animal. 



Another of my generic names, Neotomys, was used as a misprint for 

 Nectomys by Wallace some years before I published it, but there the 

 misprinted term was without any mention of a species or reference to a 

 description, and consequently, viewed simply by itself, was a mere nomeu 

 nudum, which was not the case with Philippi's Dryomys. 



