A NEW GENUS OF EXTINCT MUSCARDINE RODENT. 209 



11. On a new Genus oE Extinct Muscardine Rodent from 

 the Balearic Islands. By Dorothea M. A. Bate *, 

 Hon. M.B.O.U. 



1 Received April 9, 1918 ; Read May 7, 1918.] 

 (Plate I.t and Text-figs. 1,2.) 



Ikdbx. 



Systematic .- Pare 



Hypnomys, gen. n 210 



H. mahonensis, sp. ii 218 



S. morpheus, sp. n 219 



During a second visit to Mallorca in 1 910 in search of ossiferous 

 deposits a few rodent remains were obtained ; the following year 

 further researches were carried out in Menorca by means of a 

 grant from the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, iind 

 here similar remains were found to be somewhat more plentiful, 

 occurring in several fissures in the Miocene limestone. A de- 

 scription of the deposits from which the collection was obtained 

 has already been published %. A first cursory examination 

 of the specimens led me to suppose that they represented large 

 forms of Uliomys§ or Leitkia\\. Since then a number of spe- 

 cimens from Menorca have been developed from the hard matrix 

 in which they were embedded, and all have been carefully 

 examined, with the result that it is found that they cannot be 

 included in any genus with which I have been able to compare 

 them. The examples from the two islands diff"er considerably in 

 size, those from Menorca being the larger, and they are probably 

 specifically distinct: in this connection it is interesting to remember 

 that, after the examination of a very large quantity of material, a 

 similar variation in size was found to obtain in Myotragi(,s %. 

 This seems to point to a longer period of isolation in Menorca, 

 the most easterly and probably the first of the group to be 

 separated from the mainland. 



All the remains obtained are now in the collection of the 

 British Museum (Natural History). No complete skulls and 

 only a few limb-bones were procured, but it will be seen from 

 the descriptions of the specimens given below that the Balearic 

 genus should undoubtedly be included in the Muscardinidse. 

 The specimens to be described are intermediate in size be- 

 tween the largest recent forms and the extinct Leithia from 

 Malta, and show a number of points of resemblance both to 

 the recent Eliomys and to the Maltese Leithia, but at the same 

 time difiier to an equal extent from both these genera. The 



* Communicated by Dr. A. Smith Woodwahd, F.R.S., F.Z.S. 

 + For explanation of the Plate see p. 222. ^ 



I Geol. Mas:. [6] vol. i. 1914, pp. 337-45. 



§ ihu. p. ibo. 



II Proc.Zool.Soe. 1916. p. 424. 



•j[ See Andrews, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. ser. B, vol. 206, 1915, p. 801. 



