new Muride from Smyrna. 189 
General colour above rather paler and less blackened than 
in mystacinus and epimelas, which in this respect are precisely 
similar to one another. Head and fore-back greyer than the 
buffy or drab hind-back. Sides clearer drab. Under surface 
from chin to anus pure snowy white, sharply defined laterally, 
the hairs white throughout except a few on the chest, which 
have their extreme bases slaty. ars large, thinly haired, 
greyish. Outer side of forearms and of legs drab, similar to 
the sides, not markedly greyer as in theallied forms. Hands 
and feet pure white. ‘Tail well-haired, sharply bicolor, 
blackish above, pure white below. 
Skull closely similar to that of mystacenus, but the palatal 
foramina rather longer, reaching to the level of the front of 
m’, and the interpterygoid fosse (instead of being parallel- 
sided) narrowed at their centre by the bowing-in of the 
pterygoids, as is also the case in epimelas. 
Dimensions of the type (measured in the flesh by Mr. 
Blackler) :— 
Head and body 116 millim.; tail 136; hind foot (s. u.) 
25; ear 20. 
Skull: greatest length 31°3; basilar length 24:4; length 
of nasals 12°2; interorbital breadth 4°7; palate length 13°7; 
diastema 83; palatal foramina 7-1x2°4; length of upper 
molar series 4°8. 
Type. Old male. B.M. no.3.6.1. 3. Original number 9. 
Collected 25th February, 1903. 
*‘ Caught in a cave, at an altitude of about 300 feet.” 
Dr. Nehring distinguished the Grecian Mus epimelas from 
M. mystacinus on certain discrepancies which his type showed 
as compared with Danford and Alston’s description of the 
Asia Minor species. But, as a matter of fact, these discre- 
pancies all disappear on the examination of a number of 
specimens, and our excellent series of “epimelas” from 
Montenegro and Albania contains examples agreeing exactly 
with the cotypes of mystacinus in all the characters mentioned 
by Dr. Nehring. But the European form seems always to 
have rather larger molars than the Asiatic one, and as smyrn- 
ensis occurs between the two, the former might, I think, be 
best regarded as a subspecies of mystacinus. ‘lhe new sub- 
species is readily distinguishable from both by its pure white 
belly. 
Meriones Blackler?, sp. n. 
A fairly large species with small bullee and white-tufted 
tail. 
General colour pale greyish fawn, paler and more greyish 
