THE YELLOW-NECKED FIELD MOUSE 545 



THE YELLOW-NECKED FIELD MOUSE. 

 APODEMUS FLA VICOLLIS (Melchior). 



1834. MUS FLAVICOLLIS, Melchior, Den Danske Staats og Norges Pattedyr, 99 ; 



described from Sjaelland, Denmark ; de Winton, Zoologist, December 1894, 441 ; 



Lydekker ; (Apodemus) Miller {Catalogue). 

 1874. Mus SYLVATICUS, Lilljeborg, Sveriges og Norges Ryggradsdjur, i., 263 ; 



Barrett-Hamilton, Proc. Zool. Soc, London, 1900, 404, 406, 408 (in part ; sub-species 



M. s. iypicus, cellarius, princeps, wintoni) ; Fatio, Trouessart, Winge, and Collett 



(all in part). 



For full Synonymy of species and typical sub-species, see Miller's 

 Catalogue. 



History: — In 1834 Melchior described his Mus flavicollis from 

 material collected in Sjaelland, Denmark; in 1836 the editor of 

 Wiegmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte (1836, 78), when reviewing 

 Melchior's book, expressed his decided opinion that A. flavicollis was 

 nothing but a large variety of sylvaticus, and for upwards of sixty years 

 subsequent writers appear to have been satisfied with this opinion, 

 In 1894 de Winton studied some giant Field Mice from Herefordshire 

 and came to the conclusion that they, together with a specimen from 

 Oundle, Northamptonshire, and another from Tharand, Saxony, were 

 distinct from A. sylvaticus, and that they were referable to Melchior's 

 species. Barrett-Hamilton, finding that Field Mice from Hillerod, in 

 Sjaelland, Denmark (a locality almost topotypical for flavicollis'), agreed 

 with typical sylvaticus from Upsala, regarded, in 1900, Melchior's name 

 as a synonym of sylvaticus typicus ; he was not then aware that two forms 

 of Field Mouse were living in Sjaelland ; at the same time he distin- 

 guished, as sub-species of sylvaticus, Mus cellarius, J. V. Fisher {^Zool. 

 Gart.,v\\., 153, 1866), described from cellars at or near St Petersburg, 

 Russia, and his own M. s. princeps, described from Bustenari, Rumania ; 

 de Winton's mice were described as a sub-species, wintoni, of sylvaticus 

 also. With much more material at his disposal Miller has concluded 

 that the giant Field Mouse is specifically distinct from A. sylvaticus, 

 and that this large species is the Mus flavicollis of Melchior. Miller 

 further regards the British A. f. wintoni as a distinct sub-species from 

 the typical yi./y?«z^/^o/& of the Continent. His views are adopted in 

 the present work. 



Two recent authors of great eminence, Winge and Collett, do not 

 think A. flavicollis to be a valid species. The former {^Dan-marks 

 Pattedyr, 94) regards flavicollis as simply a well-grown sylvaticus ; ^ 



' " There does not appear to be any occasion to speak even of a true racial dis- 

 tinction ; the difference is most likely dependent upon accidental better or worse 

 condition." 



