58 DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OP 



Fur short and fine, mixed with slender spines along the 

 centre of the back. General colour rufous, mixed with brown 

 along the top of the head and back, brighter and clearer on 

 the cheeks and sides, the general tone very similar to that of 

 Mils jcrdoni. Whole of underside pure creamy white, sharply 

 defined from the rufous of the sides. Outsides of limbs like 

 sides, but rather greyer ; inner sides, white ; lower leg and 

 ankles greyish brown all round. Hands and feet brown along 

 the middle of their upper surfaces, their edges white, the 

 contrast especially strongly marked on the feet, where a broad 

 band of deep blackish brown passes along the centre, edged on 

 each side with pure white. 



Sole-pads large, smooth and prominent, the last one 

 about three times as long as broad. Fifth hind toe, without 

 claw, reaching to the end of the first phalanx of the fourth. 

 Ears rounded, rather short, laid forward they barely reach to 

 the posterior canthus of the eyes. 



Tail enormously long, evenly finely haired, the scales, 

 which are long, averaging from seven to nine to the centimetre, 

 uniformly dark brown above and below throughout, but the 

 hairs black for the proximal two thirds above only, elsewhere 

 pvu'e white. Mamma?, 2-2 = 8. 



Dimensions of the type, which was discovered by Mr. 

 J. Whitehead, an adult male, preserved as a skin : — Head and 

 bod}', 280 millim. ; tail, 340 ; hind foot, 43*5 ; ear, above 

 head, 18 ; breadth, 18 ; heel to front of last foot-pad, 23 ; 

 length of last foot-pad, 7'0. Skull : tip of nasals to centre of 

 fronto-parietal suture ("bregma"), 36 millim. ; nasals: length, 

 21 ; greatest breadth, 6-o ; interorbital breadth, 77 ; length of 

 upper molar series, 9*4. 



One species, also a native of Borneo, has a certain 

 superficial resemblance to the present one, although belonging 

 to quite a different group of rats. This is Miis 7micUcri\ Jent., 

 of about the same size, and with a nearly equally long tail ; 

 but it may be readily distinguished by its coarse Mus dccumanns- 

 like fur, yellowish instead of rufous coloration, the less sharply 

 defined white underside, and by the quite uniformly brown- 

 haired feet and tail. 



Miis sahaiuis is a hill species of rat, and fond of living in 

 caves ; some exceedingly fine specimens were obtained by 

 Mr. Cox in the Niah Caves, in 1892, which apparently lived 

 upon the food which was brought by people engaged in the 

 collection of edible swallows' nests, which are abundant in 

 many of the caves in Borneo. I also obtained two smaller 

 specimens of the rat on Mount Dulit as high up as 5,000 feet. 

 They were living in the moss which covers the top of that 

 mountain, but they were evidently partial to rice, as one was 

 shot in the act of makinfr a hole in one of our rice basis. 



