MAMMALOGY. 



dark and forming four distinct blackish bands ; the ears are short 

 and rounded : the anterior legs short, with the feet small and fur- 

 nished with five toes, the interior one of which is very short ; the pos- 

 terior legs are rather long, and have three long toes in the middle, 

 with a short exterior toe and an interior one yet smaller. 



The dorsal stripes in this species of rat are in a peculiar degree 

 remarkable and characteristic. In this respect there is a distant 

 similarity between this animal and the small lineated mouse, described 

 by Sparrman under the name of Pumilio, and which is also a native 

 of the same part of Africa. The latter is however the smallest of 

 the mouse tribe, being only two inches in length from nose to tail. 

 The general similarity which seems at the first view to prevail between 

 those two animals may possibly suggest an idea of the former being 

 the young of the present species ; but without resting too implicitly 

 on the great disparity of size and other slighter differences, the head 

 in our present species is much larger, the snout more pointed, the 

 ears more approximate, and the posterior feet not precisely cor- 

 respondent, the two exterior toes being shorter in proportion than 

 in the diminutive little creature which Sparrman has designated 

 under the name of Mus Pumilio. 



