310 EODENTIA. 



animal from the frontier of China. But a grave difficulty arises, because the feet 

 of this mouse do not agree with Dr. Gray's description of the feet of Vandeleuria. 

 He says : " Hind feet very long, slender ; soles bald beneath ; toes 4*5 ; long, slender, 

 compressed, the three middle subequal, the hinder middle very long; the front 

 outer very rudimentary, scarcely visible ; the front inner weak, the hinder outer longer 

 than the inner ; claws small." In the mouse from the Nampoung and which I have 

 already said is identical with Elliot's specimens, the following is a description of the 

 feet : hind feet rather long and somewhat expanded towards the toes ; soles bald 

 beneath, and the pads much more strongly developed than in ground mice, and 

 having the form generally characteristic of arboreal rodents ; toes rather long, 

 slender, and compressed; toes 5*5; inner toe of forefoot quite rudimentary, but with 

 a nail ; the front outer toe rather feeble ; the three middle hind toes are subequal and 

 rather long ; the hinder outer toe is longer than the inner. The inner and outer toes 

 of both feet are furnished each with a small flattened nail which is so rudimentary 

 on the outer toe of the fore foot that it may occasionally be lost ; the remaining 

 toes have short strong claws. Erom a comparison of this description with that of 

 Dr. Gray's, it will be observed that there are important structural differences regard- 

 ing the feet which make it doubtful that the mice sent by Sir Walter Elliot and 

 regarded by Blyth and Jerdon as Vandeleuria, really belong to that genus if Dr. Gray's 

 description is accurate. But it seems apparent from the internal evidence of 

 Dr. Gray's description that some errors have crept into it, because the fore foot is 

 said to have only four toes and yet to have the three middle toes subequal. 

 Moreover, it will be remarkable if the front outer were the rudimentary, and not 

 the inner toe. 



Notwithstanding the difficulties of reconciling the description of Vandeleuria 

 with Elliot's specimens and with this mouse from the Nampoung, I am still inchned 

 to consider that this was the animal Dr. Gray had in view, but the doubt which I 

 have expressed can only be solved by a reference to the type specimens in London. 

 With regard to the characters of this mouse more in detail : I have mentioned the 

 circumstance that true claws are restricted to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th digits, the 1st and 

 5th digits of each foot being provided with a flattened nail. There is also another 

 feature of the 1st and 5th digits, namely, the considerable development of the ungual 

 cushions which are full and rounded and not laterally compressed like the cushions 

 of the clawed digits, which are also much more prominent than in ground mice. 

 The pads on the soles of the feet resemble in their form and development the same 

 structures on the feet of that long-tailed tree and ground rat which is generally 

 known in India as Mus rufescens, and they are relatively much more developed than 

 in the pads of such thoroughly ground mice as Mus urbanus. The transverse plates 

 also resemble in character these plates in M. rufescens, and are very much more 

 perfect and like the transverse plates on the under surface of a gecko's toes than the 

 broken up plates on the toes of such small ground-mice as M. urbanus. With 

 regard to the dentition : in the mice sent by Sir Walter Elliot, the upper incisors 

 present a raised line down the longitudinal mesial line of the front aspect of the 



