1905.] MAMMALS FROM PERSIA AND ARMENIA. 525 



Type :— 



Calomyscus bailwardi. 



A beautiful Gerbille-coloui-ed, long-eared, tufted-tailed mouse 

 of about the size of Mus onuscuhis. 



Fur soft and fine, hairs of back about 7 mm. in length. 



General colour above a beautiful " pinkish buff," darkened on 

 the back by the tijDS of the hairs being black, clear and rich along 

 the flanks and down the outer sides of the legs to the ankles. 

 Whole of under surface pure sharply contrasted white, which 

 ascends rather high up on the cheeks, nearly to the eyes, covers 

 the whole of the fore limbs, ascending almost to the shoulder, and 

 the inner side of the hind limbs. Head bviffy, slightly paler than 

 back. Ears very large, practically naked, pale brown, their few 

 fine scattered hairs white ; a small white patch above the base of 

 their anterior margin. Upper surface of hands and feet pure 

 white. Fifth hind toe long, reaching to the middle of the 

 terminal phalanx of the fourth. Tail long, well haired, the hairs 

 lengthening terminally into a pencil ; pure white below, above 

 whitish proximally, darkening terminally to blackish. 



Skull with the nasal region long and narrow. Interorbital 

 space broad, smooth, slightly con-s'ex, its edges scarcely marked, 

 no ridges developed on the parietals. Anterior plate of zygomata 

 not projected forwards. Palatal foramina ending half their own 

 length in front of the molars. 



Dimensions of the type (measured in the flesh) : — 



Head and body 78 mm.; tail 87 ; hind foot 20-5 ; ear 21-5. 



Skull — greatest leng-th 26 ; basilar length 19'2 ; greatest breadth 

 13"8; nasals 10*1 X 3*2 ; interorbital breadth 4*4; brain-case 

 breadth 12; interparietal 3'1 x 8*7; palatilar length 10'5 ; 

 diastema 6'9 ; palatal foramina 4-5 x 1'8 ; length of upper molar 

 series 3*3. 



Hab. and Ti/pe as above. 



" Trapped among barren rocks on mountain-side above the 

 Mala-i-Mir marsh."— i?. B. W. 



The discovery of this beautiful animal is of extreme interest, as 

 it belongs to a group hitherto believed to be exclusively American 

 and Malagasy, with the exception of Cricetus and Mystromys. 

 This group of biserial-toothed Muridse is apparently a veiy 

 primitive one *, and was no doubt spread widely over the Old 

 World as well as the New before the triserial Ihcrince were 

 developed and beat it in the struggle for existence throughout the 

 Eastern Hemisphere. But they penetrated neither to Madagascar 

 nor America, in which countries the Muridse are all of the 

 biserial group. Now in Calomyscus we have another Oricetine 



* Several fossil members of this group, Eocene and Miocene, are known, and are 

 all referred bj^ pala3ontologists to Cricetodon Lartet, bnt if still existing they would 

 apparently represent quite a number of what mammalogists now call genera. I am 

 indebted to Dr. Forsyth Major for showing me a series of representative specimens 

 of the fossil forms. 



