PROM THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 401 



MUS LUZON! CUS TllOS. 



Mus luzonicus Tlios. Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) xvi. p. 163 (189.5). 



a, b. 2 ■ Monte Data^ Lepanto, Luzon, 8000 feet, Feb. 1895. a, type. 

 c. Yg. aL Lepanto Highlands, Luzon. Presented by Mr. Whitehead. 



Allied to, and of about the same size and dorsal colour as, the last species. Fur 

 much longer and softer, the wool-hairs about 20 millim. long on the back, and the 

 longer hairs from 30 to 40. General colour coarsely grizzled brown, resulting from a 

 mixture of huffy yellow and black ; the wool-hairs dark slaty basally, their tips for 

 4 or 5 millim. buff, the long hairs black, but some of them with fheir extreme tips 

 whitish. Under surface dull slaty buff, not defined on the sides ; the hairs slaty 

 basally, buff terminally. Head clearer greyish, owing to the tips of the shorter hah's 

 being rather whitish than yellow. Eyes with an indistinct blackish ring, most marked 

 posteriorly above. Ears of medium length, very thinly hrdred, their backs blackish, 

 finely edged with white. Upper surface of hands and feet hoary, some of the hairs 

 blackish, and others (the majority) silvery white. Tail rather shorter than in Mus 

 evereffi,ys'e\] haired, though not pencilled, coarsely scaled (scales 8 or 9 to the cm.), its 

 proximal half or two-thirds black above, paler below, its distal portion white all round. 



Skull (PI. XXXVI. fig. 4) markedly distinguished from that of M. eueretti, and 

 perhaps from all other Eats of so great a size, by the reduction of the supraorbital 

 ridges, which merely form a fine beading along the edges of the frontal, and practically 

 disappear halfway along the parietals. Brain-case smooth, round, and swollen ; and 

 this cliaracter is present all over the skull, wliich is unusually smooth and without 

 rid2;es and angles. Posterior nares broad and open, the palatal edge opposite the 

 hinder margin o^ m? Bullse smaller than in M. everetti. 



Incisors yellow, not the dark orange of M. everetti. Molars broader than in that 

 animal, the laminae more simply transverse, and the outer cusp of each lamina less 

 distinctly defined from the middle cusp. 



Dimensions of type ( S ) measured in skin : — 



Head and body 240 millim. ; tail imperfect (of another specimen 200) ; hind foot 

 (moistened) 47. 



Dimensions of skull of type, see p. 404. Another specimen has a basilar length of 

 44 millim. by a greatest breadth of 28'6. 



Hah. Monte Data, Luzon. 



" Scarce on Monte Data, where only four specimens were obtained." — J. W. 



It is curious that two large Rats of the group M'ith white-tipped tails should inhabit 

 the Data plateau; but, like as they are in size and colour, there can be no question 

 that they are of perfectly distinct species. 



VOL. siv. — PART VI. No. 4. — June, 1898. 3 g 



