APODEMUS 50s 



distinct insular races. A.flavicollis appears to be a specialised offshoot 

 of the sylvaticus group ; it is quite likely of Eastern origin, its range 

 extending from northern India to England, in which latter country it 

 is a relatively recent immigrant and has developed as a sub-species, A. 

 f. wintoni, distinct from the typical continental form. 



The sylvaticus group has a wide range, extending over the whole 

 habitat of the genus with the exception of eastern Asia and Japan. 

 This group probably originated in western Europe ; it is first known 

 from the late Pliocene (Forest Bed) of Britain, and all the fossil forms 

 hitherto discovered in this country are close allies of ^. sylvaticus. 



A. mystacinus, Danford and Alston {Proc. ZooL Soc, 1877, 279). 

 from Palestine, and A. epimelas, Nehrihg {Sits.-Ber. Gesellsch. Nat. 

 Freunde, Berlin, January 1902, 2), from Greece and the Balkan 

 Peninsula, are much like the sylvaticus group in essentials, but differ in 

 their large size and rather more primitive molars, in^ and m^ retaining 

 a distinct cusp 3 — an ancient element of which no more than the 

 merest trace is normally present in other known species of Apodemus 

 (PL XXVIII., Fig. 4). 



A. geisha, Thomas {Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., May 1905, 491), is 

 confined to the Japanese Archipelago, where its typical form occurs on 

 Hondo, Shikoku, and Kiushiu ; it is differentiated into distinct sub- 

 species on each of several of the islands to the north or south of the 

 three named. It is described as a delicate species about equal in size 

 to one of the smaller forms of ^. sylvaticus, but with more of the build 

 and appearance of a large harvest mouse ; its soft fur does not become 

 spiny in summer ; it has eight mammse ; the skull is very smooth, light 

 and delicate, without supra-orbital beads, and with the masseteric 

 zygomatic plates but little developed ; cusp i is present in ir^. 



A. speciosus, Temminck {Fauna Japonica, 1845, 5 2 ; described from 

 Japan), is the type of a widely distributed Eastern group which ranges 

 throughout Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and westwards and southwards 

 through China; in central Asia it is represented by A. nigritalus, 

 HoUister {Smiths. Misc. Coll, March 191 3, i ; described from Tapucha, 

 Altai Mountains, S.E. of Biisk), and it is there accompanied by a 

 member of the sylvaticus group {A. s. tscherga, Kastchenko). In the 

 speciosus group the fur becomes spiny in summer, and there are eight 

 mammae ; the skull has the margins of the inter-orbital region beaded ; 

 the cheek-teeth are like those of the sylvaticus group. A. semotus, 

 Thomas {Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., May 1908, 447), is an interesting 

 representative of the speciosus group inhabiting the island of Formosa ; 

 this is a dark-coloured, thin-furred form which has lost the anterior 

 pectoral mammae, there being but six as in A. sylvaticus, and in which 

 «^ and m^ have cusp 7 better developed than in most of the sub-species 

 oi speciosus. 



VOL. 11. 2 K 



