180 Mr. O. Thomas on Three neio African Muridse. 



species in general form, the characters of its skull and teeth, 

 and other essential points, but distinguished by its decidedly- 

 smaller size, smaller skull, and proportionally longer tail. 

 Colour as in the figure of "Z>. QueinzUr Ear large and 

 broad, almost perfectly circular in outline; laid forward it 

 falls about 2 millim. short of the posterior canthus of the eye. 

 Posterior foot-pads six. Mammse 1 — 2 = 6. 



Dimensions of the type (an adult female in spirit) : — 



Head and body 128 millim.; tail 148; hind foot 30-5; 

 ear, height above crown 15, breadth 17. 



Skull: basal length 31*5, greatest breadth 18, nasal length 

 12*2; interorbital breadth 4; interparietal, length 3*8, 

 breadth 9'2 ; nasal tip to back of interparietal 32'7 ; anterior 

 zygoma-root 4*1 ; palate length 19'6 ; diastema 10"3 ; pala- 

 tine foramina 8" 1 ; length of upper molar series 6*5. 



Bab. Ngombi (also called " Wathen "), Lower Congo. 



Type B. M. 91. 2. 11. 2. Collected and presented, with 

 many other interesting animals, by Mrs. Bentley, after whom 

 I have great pleasure in naming it. 



To this species I also assign two specimens obtained by 

 Emin Pasha in Monbuttu, Central Africa, and referred by me 

 in 1888* to Mus Gueinzii, although the peculiarity of finding 

 a Natal species in Monbuttu was commented upon at the 

 time. Since then, however, the Museum has received, through 

 the kindness of Prof, du Bocage, two specimens of the Ango- 

 lan species described in 1870 f by Peters as M<us nudipes, a 

 species described without any reference to the characters 

 which made the same author erect M. Gueinzii into a separate 

 genus, but one which proves to be so closely allied to this 

 latter as to be very doubtfully separable specifically from it. 

 Having this form now for comparison with M. Bentleyce^ and 

 having also seen in the meantime the type of '"'' Dasymys 

 GueinziV in Berlin, 1 have changed my opinion about the 

 Congo and Central-African species, and now consider it to be 

 new. 



The specimens of nudipes are remarkable for the entire 

 suppression in them of the fifth hind foot-pad, while they are 

 present in M. BeiUleyce and {fide Peters) in the Natal form. 

 "Were it not for this diff'erence I should have little hesitation 

 in uniting specifically the Natal and Angolan species, even 

 though the latter appears to have slightly longer hind feet 

 than the former. 



* P. Z. S. 1888, p. 12. 



t J. Sci. Lisb. 1870, p. 126. 



