SIZE.—Head and body, 6½ inches; tail, 1¾ inch.
Blyth says he obtained a living specimen in Upper Martaban, and recognised it as the same as what had been obtained in Siam. The Rev. Mr. Mason writes of it: "This animal, which burrows under old bamboo roots, resembles a marmot more than a rat; yet it has much of the rat in its habits. I one night caught a specimen gnawing a cocoa-nut, while camping out in the jungles."
I may here mention a curious little animal, which is apparently a link between the MURIDÆ and the SPALACIDÆ, Myospalax fuscocapillus, named and described by Blyth ('J. A. S. B.' xv. p. 141), found at Quetta, where it is called the "Quetta mole." A full account of it by Mr. W. T. Blanford is to be found in the 'Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal,' (vol. L. pt. ii.).
This family contains a form of rodent similar to, yet more pronounced than, the jerboa rats, of which I have already treated. It includes the true Jerboas (Dipus), the American Jumping Mice (Zapus), the Alactaga, and the Cape Jumping Hare (Pedetes caffer). The characteristics of the family are as follows:—
| Dentition of Jerboa |
"Incisors compressed; premolars present or absent; grinding teeth rooted or rootless, not tuberculate, with more or fewer transverse enamel folds; skull with the brain-case short and broad; infra-orbital opening rounded, very large (often as large as the orbit); zygomatic arch slender, curved downwards; the malar ascending in front to the lachrymal in a flattened perpendicular plate; facial surface of maxillaries minutely perforated; mastoid portion of auditory bullæ usually greatly developed; metatarsal bones elongated, often fused into a cannon bone; form gracile; front portion of body and fore-limbs very small; hind limbs long and strong, with from three to five digits; tail long, hairy. Three sub-families" (Alston On the Order GLIRES, 'P. Z. S.' 1876). The three sub-families are Zapodidæ,[28] Dipodinæ and Pedetinæ, but we have only to deal with the second.
28 Formerly Jaculinæ.