CRICETIN^ 



383 



Journ. GeoL Soc, xxvi., 1870, 128, pi. viii., fig. 6; and Proc. 

 Somerset. Arch, and Nat. Hist. Soc, xv., 1868-69, 56, fig. 6, 

 1870) to Mus songarus, a form described by Pallas {Reise, 

 1773, ii., 703, pi. B., i) from the river Irtisch, Siberia, but 

 now placed in the genus Phodopus (Miller, Smiths. Misc. 

 Coll., 1 2th Jan. 1 910, 498; Hollister, Journ. cit., 29th Nov. 

 1912, 3). The Somerset specimens cannot, however, be 

 synonymised with P. sungorus, and need a new name. They 

 may be appropriately known as Phodopus sanfordi, and thus 

 form an interesting addition to the British fauna. Phodopus, 

 which is in external form and teeth less highly modified than 

 Cricetus, is known also from the Altai District {P. crepidattis of 

 Hollister),and North-eastern Mongolia {P. campbelli oiTh.oma.s). 

 The CricetincB are, like the pikas, of peculiar interest, 

 being ancient generalised forms which have retained primitive 



— mi — 



7«3 



Fig. 54.— Cheek-Teeth of Cricetus cricetus (crown view ; five times life size) ; A, unworn ; B, 

 slightly worn ; I, la, right upper ; 2, 2a, left lower. From Miller's Catalogue of the Mammals 

 of Western Europe. (By kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum of Natural 

 History. 



characters, suggestive of the probable development of the 

 more highly specialised Microtince and Murince from a cricetine- 

 like ancestor. Their cheek-teeth are rooted, and, as in the 

 MurincB, the crowns are tubercled, but the arrangement in 

 the upper jaw is one of two, not three, rows. As the tubercles 

 wear down, a triangular, microtine-like pattern is revealed. 



The Cricetines, like many other groups represented in 

 extra-arctic regions of both hemispheres, have no widespread 

 form identical or representative in both. They are older 

 than the existing land connections, and their present absence 



