FKOM THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 399 



Sides of snout obscure whitish, top blackish. Eyes small, not noticeably ringed. Ears 

 rather large, thinly haired, the anterior half of their outer and posterior half of their 

 inner surfaces blackish. Wrists and metacarpals brown above, digits whitish or flesh- 

 coloured. Hind feet similarly coloured. Tail shorter than head and body, very finely 

 ringed, clothed with short hairs, not pencilled terminally, blackish above, scarcely 

 paler below, the extreme tip white in most specimens. 



Skull and teeth as above described. 



Dimensions of the type, measured in skin ( d ) : — 



Head and body 215 millim. ; tail 146 ; hind foot (moistened) 41. 



Skull, see p. 395. 



Hab. Monte Data, 8000 feet. 



The following are Mr. Whitehead's notes on this most peculiar animal. It is 

 unfortunate that he has no positive knowledge of its habits or food, as its anomalous 

 dentition is certain to be correlated with some food very unusual among Muridse; very 

 possibly, as Mr. Whitehead suggests, it eats caterpillars or worms, for it is difficult to 

 imagine any vegetable food for which its reduced dentition and Shrew-like snout would 

 be at all suitable : — 



"This interesting Shrew-Rat was obtained on the summit of Monte Data, where only 

 five specimens were snared. I am unfortunately unable to give any account of the 

 habits of this extraordinary mammal. The Igorrotes told me that it lives on grass, 

 which is probably untrue, the teeth apparently being quite unfitted for such food ; 

 insects and worms are probably the diet suited to such rudimentary molars. The eye 

 is, comparatively speaking, small, which leads me to believe that Bhynclwmys is a 

 diurnal-feeding Rat, like the true Shrews. 



"•Distribution. High mountains of Central Northern Luzon." 



Phi/eomys pallidus Nehring. 



a. <S . La Trinidad, Benguet Dist., N. Luzon, Feb. 9, 1894. 



b, c. c? ? . Cape Engafio, Lepanto, N. Luzon, May 1895. 

 d. Monte Data, Luzon, Feb. 1895. 



The specimens sent by Mr. Whitehead all belong to the larger soft-haired form to 

 which Dr. Nehring applied the name of P. cumingi, vox. pallidus, but which appears 

 to me to be sufficiently distinct to demand specific recognition. 



When Dr. Nehring first suggested the name, Dr. Meyer considered him wrong in 

 doing so, and, with some whitish and piebald specimens before him, quoted a letter of 

 mine, informing him that the original series of P. cumingi also contained both black 

 and piebald specimens, and that therefore the species was to be regarded merely as a 

 very variable one. On now looking again at the original specimens in the Museum 

 collection, I find, to my surprise, that there is among them a bad, but perfectly 



