598 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
another at Betala, farther inland, on October 14. It is probably to some extent 
a climbing rat as indicated by the long tail, slightly hairy at the tip. 
Thamnomys buntingi Thomas. White-bellied Bush Rat 
Thamnomys buntingi Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 8, vol. 7, p. 381, 1911: Gouyou, Bassa, 
Liberia. 
Externally similar to the last, but the belly clear white to the roots of the hairs, the hind feet 
with a dark central area, and the back duller, lacking the long shiny-tipped hairs; head and body 
about 108 mm., tail 170, hind foot 23, greatest length of skull about 29. 
This is another climbing species, with long tail, and was first discovered by 
R. H. Bunting in Liberia in 1911. From other members of the genus it is dis- 
tinguished by its size, the short palatal foramina, the small bullae and teeth. 
We secured two specimens only, one at Gbanga, the other at Paiata. No doubt, 
like others of the genus, they are to a certain extent at least, arboreal, and it was 
probably an individual of this or the preceding species that one of us saw in mid- 
afternoon climbing quickly along the branches of a bushy thicket, disappearing 
from view before it could be secured. 
Mastomys coucha erythroleucus (Temminck). Multimammate Rat 
Mus erythrolewcus Temminck, Esquisses Zool. sur la Cote de Guiné, 1853, p. 160: Guinea. 
A small rat with tail usually slightly shorter than head and body; general color above grayish 
in immature animals, becoming slightly brownish in fully adult individuals; feet white; lower side 
grayish. 
The Liberian representative of this widespread species is doubtless the same 
as the Mus erythroleucus named by Temminck from the Guinea Coast, and this 
in turn is probably not very different from the race of Central Africa. It was 
perhaps a young one of this rat that Jentink records as possibly “ Mus nigricauda”’ 
in his report on Buttikofer’s collections. Thomas has erected for these Multi- 
mammate Rats a special genus, Mastomys, in which there are twelve pairs of 
mammae arranged in two rows from axilla to groin. We opened a number of 
females to see what correlation there might be between the number of young 
and the large number of mammae, but in no case found so many as twenty-four 
embryos. One from Gbhanga, September 20, contained eight, five on one side 
and three on the other; a second, September 24, contained fifteen; Hollister re- 
cords that in East Africa, Heller found ten, twelve, and thirteen, in specimens 
taken. The Multimammate Rats are the commonest of the native species in 
Liberia, especially abounding in the vicinity of villages and clearings, and doing 
more or less damage in the rice fields by cutting down the stalks of grain. They 
come freely into the houses and seem to meet with some competition from the 
introduced House Rats, for we several times woke at night to hear lively fighting 
going on among rats near our cots, and our traps set inside the shelter would 
catch both species. We even got Multimammate Rats in our tents pitched in 
an area on the Du River only recently cleared of forest and at some distance from 
the nearest village. At Gbanga where both species were foraging nightly in our 
“nalaver kitchen,” it was noticeable that a majority of those caught showed 
