MAMMALS OF LIBERIA 099 
They are very alert, however, and not readily approached. When standing erect 
on their haunches, motionless, they may so closely simulate a dead stick of 
wood that they might easily be passed by. Several immature examples were 
brought in to us at Paiata, and we saw a few adults as at Suahkoko and Meri- 
cani. Biittikofer obtained specimens at Buluma and Robertport, and says they 
are commonest in the ground-nut plantations and new cassava farms, digging 
up the cassava and gnawing the rind. This is a burrowing species as its very 
small ears and powerful claws indicate. 
MYOXIDAE Dormice 
Claviglis crassicaudatus Jentink. West Coast Dormouse 
Claviglis crassicaudatus Jentink, Notes Leyden Mus., vol. 10, p. 41, 1888: Du River, Liberia. 
Superficially resembling a very small squirrel, total length about 175 mm., with nearly naked 
ears and flattened bushy tail, mammae 2 —2 = 8; general color above a warm grayish brown, 
below gray; tail drab. 
Thomas in 1925, restricted the name Graphiurus, generally used for the small 
bushy-tailed African dormice, to the South African species, G. ocularis, so that 
the next available name for those species with larger upper premolar and more 
ridged teeth is Jentink’s Claviglis, based on a stumpy-tailed specimen from the 
Du River, Liberia. He believed the short tail a diagnostic character but we 
now know that this is the result of accident, and is not uncommon among these 
dormice. Indeed, Thomas (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1905, p. 491) has shown 
that such broken tails may even undergo a partial cartilaginous regeneration of 
the terminal axis. At Paiata an adult female and her two small and much 
grayer young were brought to us by a native on October 11. In spite of much 
trapping we were unable to secure additional specimens. 
Claviglis nagtglasii (Jentink). Nagtglas’s Dormouse 
Graphiurus nagtglasii Jentink, Notes Leyden Mus., vol. 10, p. 38, 1888: Gold Coast. 
A larger species than the preceding with a longer hind foot, 30 mm. instead of 15; reddish 
brown, feet white, whitish below; tail distichous and full. 
In 1862 a specimen of this larger species was sent to the Leyden Museum 
from the Gold Coast by Nagtglas after whom it is named. Jentink, in describ- 
ing it, mentions additional specimens from the Du and the Farmington rivers, 
and Miller records one from Mount Coffee. No doubt this is the species included 
as G. hueti in Johnston’s list of Liberian mammals, but that species, though per- 
haps nearly related, is Senegambian, and doubtless will be found to differ from 
this form of the rain-forest belt. The dormice of this genus are more or less 
arboreal, though often coming to the ground at the bases of trees. 
