MUS. 309 



shorter. The posterior portions of the anterior palatine foramina are mnch con- 

 tracted. 



Inches. 



Inferior border of foramen magnum to tip of premaxillce 070 



Tip of premaxillw to anterior end of palate 0-27 



Length of palate 0'16 



„ molar line •■•........... O'ldi 



Inferior margin of external border of infraorbital foramen to tip of premaxilliE . . . 0-19 



Breadth across parietals 0'38 



It frequents the villages and houses of the Kakhyens, and I ohtained it at 

 Ponsee. 



Suh-genus Vandblburia, Gray, 1842. 



Sykes, in his Catalogue of Mammalia^ inhabiting the Deccan, published in 

 1831, mentioned a mouse which he believed to be new, and which he characterized 

 as light chestnut above, reddish-wliite below, and with a tail much longer than 

 the body. This little rodent he described as of the size of a field mouse, and as 

 inhabiting only fields and gardens. 



In the following year, his specimens of this mouse had been forwarded to 

 London and were described by Mr. Bennett under the name of Miis oleraceus. The 

 great length of the tail and the comparative length of the tarsus as compared with 

 other mice were considered as characters sufficient to distinguish the species from all 

 its congeners. 



In 1839, Mr. now Sir Walter Elliot included tliis mouse in his tabular statement 

 of his Catalogue of Mammalia^ inhabiting the Southern Mahratta country as Miis 

 longicaudatus, but in the text he described it under the name of M. oleraceus, and 

 explained that the former term had been applied by himself to the species many years 

 before Bennett's description had appeared, but the name had never before been 

 pubhshed. He did not give any information regarding its structure, but recorded that 

 it fives exclusively in trees and bushes, up which it is able to run with great facility. 



Sir Walter EUiot had forwarded specimens of this mouse to the British Museum, 

 and in December 1842' Dr. Gray proposed the genus Vancleleuria for their reception. 

 About the same time Sir Walter Elliot sent to the Calcutta Museum a series of 

 specimens of a small, very long-tailed mouse with grooved upper incisors, which 

 Blyth regarded as 3Ius oleraceus and the Vancleleuria of Gray. 



I obtained in the valley of the Nampoung, a frontier stream dividing Burma 

 from China, a small mouse which agrees in its grooved incisors and other characters 

 with the mice forwarded by Sir Walter EUiot. 



This mouse being preserved in sj)irit has enabled me clearly to make out the 

 characters of the feet which were not very distinguishable in the moimted specimens 

 of the mouse from Southern India which, however, are structuraUy identical with the 



1 Proc. Zool. Soc. .July 1831, p. 99 ; Proo. Zool. Soc. June 1832, p. 121. 



2 Madr. Journ. Lit. & Sc. vol. x. July 1839, p. 94. 



3 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. x. Deo. 184,2, p. 265. 



