MURIDAE RECORDED FROM VICTORIA 
75 
vibrissae long (35 mm.), dark-brown. Ear small, brown, a little lighter on 
the anterior margin; outer surface lightly clothed with adpressed brown 
hair, inner surface with fewer buffy-white hairs. Tail a little shorter than 
head and body ; brown above, buffy-white below, sharply contrasted ; clothed 
with stiff hairs which are brown on the upper and whitish on the lower 
surface. Manus buffy-white with dark patch on wrist; pes buffy-white; 
well clothed with silky adpressed hair. 
Skull. — Arched. Nasals bent downwards. Muzzle comparatively thick 
and heavy. Front edge of zygomatic plate slightly concave and almost 
vertical. 
Teeth. — Incisors curved and comparatively heavy. Molars broad; laminae 
not tilted, on anterio-internal cusp on M 1 . 
Dimensions of Skin. — Head and body, 95 mm. ; tail, 91 mm. ; hind foot, 
23 mm.; ear, 12 mm. 
Dimensions of Skull. — From back of parietals to tip of nasals, 25 5 mm.; 
nasals, 115X3 mm. ; interorbital breadth, 3 8 mm. ; palate length, 14 mm. ; 
breadth inside M 2 , 2 8 mm.; breadth outside M 2 , 7 3 mm.; palatal foramina, 
4 5 mm.; diastema, 6 5 mm.; upper molars, 5*2 mm. 
Type Locality. — Wycliffe Creek, South Australia. 
Tlie specimens from which the Desert Mouse was originally 
described were taken on the Horn Expedition to Central 
Australia in 1895, and were the only examples known. It 
is therefore interesting to note that the range of the species 
originally extended beyond the Central area, and that at one 
time it was an inhabitant of Victoria. The five specimens in 
the National Museum were taken by Blandowski near the 
Murray River in 1857. 
Mr. E. le G*. Troughton was good enough to compare a Vic- 
torian specimen with the type, and pronounced it “indis- 
tinguishable from the central form.” 
No records of habits or habitat have been preserved. 
Genus MASTACOMYS Thomas 1882. 
The genus was erected for a Tasmanian rat possessing 
remarkably broadened cheek-teeth. Until 1933 only two 
specimens were known (the Tasmanian type, and an immature 
female from Victoria Taken many years ago), though skull 
fragments and teeth had been found in the Wellington Caves, 
New South Wales, and at Mount Gambier, South Australia. 
Teeth from the latter locality are smaller than those from 
other localities, and Thomas created a new species which he 
called mordicus. 
Mastacomys fuscus Thomas. 
Mastacomys fuscus Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (5), ix, p. 413, 1882 ; 
id. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (9), x, p. 550, 1922; Lydekker, B.M. Cat. 
