488 APPENDIX B 
mammals, I should use them, rather than the American, for pur¬ 
poses of illustration. 
Heliosciurus kenice (Kenia Forest Squirrel). Mount Kenia, B. E. A. Heller 
shot one in a tree in the heavy forest by our first elephant camp. In 
size and actions like our grey squirrel. Shy. 
Paraocerus jacksoni. Shot at same camp ; common at Nairobi and Kijabe, 
B. E. A. A little smaller than our red squirrel; much less noisy and 
less vivacious in action. Tamer than the larger squirrel, but much 
shyer than our red squirrel or chickaree. Kept among the bushes and 
lower limbs of the trees. Local in distribution ; found in pairs or small 
families. 
Graphiurus parvus (Pigmy Dormouse). Everywhere in B. E. A. in the forest; 
arboreal, often descending to the ground at night, for they are strictly 
nocturnal. Found in the woods fringing the rivers in the Sotik and on 
the Athi Plains, but most common in the juniper forests of the higher 
levels. Spend the daytime in crevices and hollows in the big trees. 
Build round, ball-like nests of bark fibre and woolly or cottony vegetable 
fibre. One of them placed in a hollow, four inches across, in a stump, 
the entrance being five feet above the ground. Caught in traps baited 
with walnuts or peanuts. 
Tatera pothce Heller (n. s.) (Athi Gerbille). Common on the Athi Plains, in 
open ground at the foot of the hills. Live in short grass, not bush. 
Nocturnal. Live in burrows, each burrow often possessing several 
entrances, and sometimes several burrows, all inhabited by same animal, 
not communicating. 
Tatera varia Heller (n. s.) (Sotik Gerbille). A large form, seemingly new. 
Lives in the open plains, among the grass ; not among bushes, nor at 
foot of hills. Lives in burrows, one animal apparently having several, 
each burrow with a little mound at the entrance. Nocturnal. In aspect 
and habits hears much resemblance to our totally different kangaroo 
rats. 
Dipodillus harwoodi (Naivasha Pigmy Gerbille). Common around Naivasha, 
also in Sotik. A small form, quarter the size of the above ; about as 
big as a house mouse. Same habits as above, but apparently only one 
burrow to each animal; much more plentiful. The burrows in the Sotik 
were in hard ground, and went straight down. Round Naivasha the 
ground was soft and dry, and most of the burrows entered it diagonally. 
Otomys irroratus tropicalis (Veldt Rat). Generally throughout B. E. A., but 
always in moist places, never on dry plains. Abundant on top of Aber- 
dares, and ten thousand feet up on slopes of Kenia. Always in open 
grass. Make very definite trails, which they cut with their teeth through 
the grass. Feed on the grass, which they cut into lengths just as our 
meadow mice {Mirotus) do. Largely diurnal, but also run about at night. 
The gravid females examined had in each of them two embryos only. 
Live in burrows, in which they place nests of fine grass six inches in 
diameter. 
Dendromys nigrofrons (Black-fronted Tree Mouse). On Athi Plains and on 
the Sotik. Size of our harvest mouse. Do not go into forest, but dwell 
in bush country and thin timber along streams. Nocturnal ; not 
abundant. Live in covered nests in bushes ; nests made of long wiry 
grass, not lined, and very small, less than three inches in diameter. 
They are globular, and entered by a hole in one side, as with our marsh 
wrens. Only one mouse to a nest, as far as we saw ; Heller caught two 
in their nests. The nests were in thorn-bushes, only about a foot and a 
half from the ground ; once or twice these mice were found in what were 
