Br. C I. Forsyth Major — Some RodenU from Oeningen. 363 



V. — SoMK Rodents from the Middle Miocene Lacustrine 



Deposits of Oeningen, Southern Germany. 



By Dr. C. I. Forsyth Major, F.Z.S. 



(PLATE XVII.) 



IN the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural 

 History) are preserved a certain number of slabs from Oeningen, 

 exhibiting skeletons of Eodents. Partly owing to unskilful de- 

 veloping, partly to the absence of the counterpart-slab, several of 

 them are in such a crushed and otherwise imperfect condition, that in 

 some cases not even the genus could be made out with certainty ; 

 which is equivalent to saying that their interest is little beyond tliat 

 of mere curiosities. Ou closer examination it appeared to me that 

 in some instances the case was not quite so hopeless, and that by 

 carefully developing the more important parts still concealed by 

 the matrix, a more satisfactory state of things might be obtained. 

 The following pages are an account of the result arrived at. 



The splendid series of Oeningen Fossils in the British Museum 

 (Natural History) formed part, with a few exceptions, of Professor 

 van Breda's collection in Haarlem, which was purchased of the 

 Executors of Dr. de Haan, his son-in-law, in 1871 by the Trustees 

 of the British Museum. Dr. Henry Woodward informs me that 

 most, if not all, of these specimens were collected in the quarries 

 of Oeningen b}' Oswald Heer, when a young man struggling to pay 

 his own college fees at the University, and by him transmitted lor 

 purchase to Professor van Breda. (See Obituary of Prof. 0. Heer, 

 Geol. Mag., 1883, Dec. II, Vol. X, p. 576.) 



1. SciURUS Bred at, H. v. Meyer. 



Sciurus Bredai, H.v.Meyer: NeuesJahrbuch, p. 472(1848) ; Schlosser, 



Die Nager des europiiischen Tertiars, Palaeontographica, 



xxxi, p. 88 (1884). 

 Sciurus spermophilinus, Deperet : Arch. Mus. Lyon, iv, p. 152, pi. xiii, 



figs. 14, 14a (1887) ; v, p. 48, pi. i, figs. 26, 27 (1892) ; 



Forsyth Major, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 193, pi. x, 



figs. 4-9 (1893). 

 The only reference made by H. v. Meyer to this name is to the 

 effect that it refers to a new species of Sciurus, from Oeningen, and 

 preserved in the van Breda Collection at Haarlem. ^ 



Amongst the MSS. of H. v. Meyer, deposited in the Munich 

 Palasontological Museum, Schlosser came upon a rough (' fliichtige ') 

 sketch of the specimen, representing the mandible, scapula, humerus, 

 and hind-limbs ; he was thus enabled to give the following measure- 

 ments (in millimetres): scapula, 16?; humerus, 26-5; femur, 34; 

 tibia, 36 ; metat. iii, 12 ; diastema between incisors and premolar, 6 ; 

 length of cheek-teeth, 7 (p. — m. 2, 5-4). Schlosser adds that the limbs 

 are remarkably short as compared with the length of the teeth-row, 



^ " . . . . das erste Stiick, welches ich in der reichen Sammlung des Professors 

 van Breda erblickte, war ein neuer Nager von Oeningen, dem ich den Nanieu Sciurus 

 Bredai beigelegt habe." (Neues Jahrb., p. 472, 1848.) 



