THE HARVEST MOUSE 



56s 



Milne Edwards (Rech. Mamm., 291, 1874), is a dark-coloured, rather 

 long-tailed form inhabiting Southern China. M. m. japonicus, Thomas 

 {P.Z.S., 1905, 351, described from Shikoku), inhabiting Japan, is a 

 dark-backed mouse with rufous rump and sharply contrasted white 

 belly, the hairs of which have slaty bases ; one old specimen, however, 

 is more or less rufous over the whole of the upper surface (Thomas) ; 

 the skull has an unusually large brain- case, and the cheek-teeth are 

 decidedly larger than those of ussuricus. 



It would appear that all forms of M. minutus have, at one stage of 

 growth, dark backs, the rumps only being then rufous ; that in the 

 Western soricinus the change to the rufous coat of maturity is made 

 quickly, and that some of the Eastern races, such as pratensis and 

 japonicus, may acquire, at all events occasionally, such a rufous coat 

 as old age advances. 



DIMENSIONS IN MILLIMETRES:— 



Remarks : — White (Letter xiii., 22nd Jan. 1768, to Pennant) found 

 that his specimens from nose to tail were just 2| inches, and their 

 tails just 2 inches long. Rope {Zoologist, 1884, 59) gives the average 

 total length of seven adults as 4 inches 8| lines : the head and body 

 averaging 2 inches 7J lines, the tail 2 inches i line. 



Weight :— White (Letter xiii.) says: "Two of them, in a scale, 

 weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of 



