MUS MUSCULU3 WILD IN PORTUGAL. 137 



in the Corvidce, Thrushes, Warblers, Doves, and other rasorial 

 birds. Yet he has made no allusion to it, but has expressed his 

 suggestion as though it had been original. 



Since the above was written I have heard from Mr. Fowler 

 that he did not think he had ever before seen my second paper on 

 "The Evolution of Bird-Song" ('Zoologist,' August, 1890) ; and 

 he kindly offers to expunge the above criticism from his book, but 

 I have expressed the hope that if his opinions are unchanged he 

 will allow it to remain. 



ON A WILD LIVING MOUSE OF THE MUS MUSCULUS 

 GROUP IN PORTUGAL. 



By Oldfield Thomas, F.Z.S. 



In England and other parts of Northern and Western 

 Europe the House Mouse, Mus musculus, is the only member 

 of its group as yet known to occur, and, as we are all aware, 

 this lives solely in or near the haunts of man, while there is no 

 genuine wild species corresponding to it, and it cannot therefore 

 properly be considered a member of the really indigenous fauna. 

 But in many parts of Asia, in Arabia, and in N. Africa, there are 

 found mice belonging to the same group, but living independently 

 of man, and evidently truly indigenous animals. These, notably 

 in N. Africa, are commonly much paler than our House Mouse, 

 and have white or whitish bellies, while in our familiar pest this 

 part is very constantly of a dull smoky colour. 



While trapping small mammals in Portugal, I have found 

 two forms of the group inhabiting the country : one our typical 

 northern animal, smoky-bellied and house-haunting; and a 

 second, found away in woods and open gardens, which appears 

 to be the Portuguese representative of the N. African white- 

 bellied mice, and to be quite distinct from the introduced and 

 domesticated form. 



This second animal is distinguished from the other by its 

 whitish or pale buff belly, well denned from the darker colour of 

 the upper parts, by its whitish feet, and also by its much shorter 

 tail. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XX. APRIL, 1896. M 



