MOURZUK, or MURZUK. See FEZZAN, vol. ix. p. 130. MOUSE. The bright and active, though mischievous, little animal known to us by the name of Mouse and its close relative the Common Rat are the most familiar and also the most typical members of the Murine, a subfamily containing about 250 species assignable to no less than 18 distinct genera, all of which, however, are so superficially alike that one or other of the English names rat or mouse would be fairly appropriate to any of them. Together they form one, and that by far the largest and most important, of the 10 sub-families into which the Muride or Rat family (order Rodentia) are divisible. Their arest neighbours are the Tree-mice (Dendromyine) and the Hamsters (Cricetina), from which they differ by various anial and dental characters. Among themselves they have for the most part very strong resemblances; nearly all are of very rat-like exterior, of light and active build, with large ears, bright and well-developed eyes, long and

Fg 1-The Australian Brown-footed Rat (Mus fuscipes, Waterh.) (After Gould.)

scaly tails, and nearly always of dull and inconspicuous coloration, as is suitable to their usually burrowing and nocturnal habits. The more important characteristics of the group, their anatomical, cranial, and dental peculiarities, have already been touched upon in the article MAMMALIA (rol v. p. 415 sq.), and therefore we may now pass to the division of the sub-family into smaller groups. Primarily the Murine are divisible into the Mures, or fhose with their molar teeth, as in the Common Rat, and the Sigmodontes, or those with their molars, like those of the Rice-rat of America. Fig. 2 will explain this: A represents the upper molars of a Mus, and B the corresponding teeth of a Sigmodont. It will thus be seen that Mus has molars composed essentially of cusps arranged triserially -that is to say, with three series of ps across each tooth-while in the Sigmodontes the cusps are arranged biserially in pairs along the teeth. the first of these groups, the Mures, belong the following genera :—

To

B

Fig. 2. A. Upper molars o Mus. B. Upper molars of Sigmodont.

process of lower jaw well developed. Eyes and ears large. Fur soft, though sometimes mixed with spines; pollex with a short nail instead of a claw. No cheek-pouches. Tail long, nearly naked, with rings of overlapping scales.

This, the typical genus of the family, is by far the largest of the order, and indeed of the whole class Mammalia, containing not less exception of Madagascar. Of these, about 30 belong to what is than 120 species spread over the whole of the Old World with the known as the Palearctic zoological region, 40 to the Oriental, 30 to the Ethiopian, and 20 to the Australian, the number of species being on the whole much more considerable in tropical than in temperate regions, while but very few are found where the climate is excessively cold. It is an interesting fact in connexion with climate that many of the species living in hot countries have their fur more or less mixed with flattened spines, and that these spines appear to be shed during the winter and to be replaced by hairs, the latter naturally affording a warmer covering for the animal

than the former.

The most important characters that have been used for the determination of the various species of Mus are the size and proportions of the body, limbs, ears, and tail, the number of mamma, which in the shape and proportions of the skull and teeth. Of the numerranges from 6 to 20, and various more or less important differences ous species the following are those most worthy of note :

Mus decumanus, Pall., the Common Brown or Norway Rat, distinguished by its large size, brownish grey colour, short tail and ears, powerful skull, and the possession of from 10 to 12 mamma. It is extremely fierce and cunning, and easily overcomes in the struggle for existence all the other allied species with which it comes in contact. Its original home would seem to have been some part of Central Asia, an indigenous species recently described from China, M. humiliatus, being in fact so extremely like it that in all probability the latter is the original race from which it has sprung. Thence it has spread to all parts of the world, driving out the house-haunting species everywhere, as it has in England all but exterminated the next species.

M. rattus, L., the old English Black Rat, readily distinguishable from the Brown Rat by its smaller size, longer ears and tail, and glossy black colour. It shares the roving habits of M, decumanus, frequenting ships, and from them passing to the land in various parts of the world. On this account it, or its tropical representative M. alexandrinus, Geof., is extremely common in many places to which M. decumanus has not yet penetrated, for instance in South America, where it has had only the far less highly-organized Sigmodontes to compete with, and where it has therefore gained a firm footing. It is extremely interesting to observe that this longtailed rat, originally a native of India, would seem to have first penetrated to all parts of the world and to have overcome and nearly or quite exterminated the indigenous rats, and that then M. decumanus, a more recent and powerful development of the House-rat type, has followed, and in its turn has overcome and nearly exterminated it.

M. musculus, Linn., the Common House-mouse, is, like the last species, originally a native of India, whence it has spread to all the inhabited parts of the globe. Its habits and appearance are too well known to need any description.

M. sylvaticus, L., the Wood or Long-tailed Field-mouse, is a species very common in many parts of England, often taking to barns and outhouses for shelter during the winter. It is of about the same size and proportions as M. musculus, but of a bright reddish grey colour, with a pure white belly.

M. minutus, Pall., the Harvest-mouse, is the smallest of the European mice, seldom exceeding 24 or 3 inches in length. It is of a yellowish red colour, with comparatively short ears and tail. It lives entirely away from houses, commonly taking up its abode in wheat or hay fields, where it builds a round grass nest about the size of a cricket-ball, in which it brings up its young.

These five English species may be taken as types of the 120 species of Mus. None are much larger than M. decumanus or smaller than 'M. minutus, and they all have habits generally similar to those of one or other of the English species, although there are some which either live in trees like squirrels, or in the water like the English Water-voles, among which latter is the species shown in fig. 1, M. fuscipes, Waterh., the Brown-footed Rat of western and southern Australia.

II. Nesokia, like Mus, but with the incisors and molars very much broader, and the transverse lamina of the latter more clearly defined.

India, has no less than eighteen mamma, nearly the largest number found among the Muride.

III. Golunda, Gray, like Mus, but with a distinct groove down the front of the upper incisors. There are only two species, one from western India, and the other from eastern Africa.

IV. Uromys, Peters., differs from Mus in having the scales of the tail not overlapping, but set edge to edge, so as to form a sort of mosaic work. There are about six species of Uromys, spread over the northern part of the Australian region from the Aru Islands to Queensland.

V. Hapalotis, Licht. Hind-limbs elongated. Incisive foramina very large. No coronoid process to the lower jaw. This genus is confined to Australia, where there are about fifteen species known. They are pretty little animals, with long ears and tail, and in many respects resemble the Jerboas, whose place they seem to take on the sandy Australian deserts.

VI. Mastacomys, Thomas, like Mus, but with the molars remarkably broadened, and with only four mamma. The single species in the genus is as yet only known from Tasmania, though it has been found fossil in New South Wales; it is somewhat similar in size and general appearance to the English Water-vole, but has much longer and softer fur. VII. Acanthomys, Less. Fur almost entirely composed of flattened spines. Coronoid process very small. There are six species of Spiny-mice known, all of about the size of the Common Mouse. They are found in Syria, Palestine, and eastern Africa as far south as Mozambique.

VIII. Echinothrix, Gray, a very remarkable rat with an extremely elongated muzzle, all the bones of the face being much produced. The incisors are faintly grooved. The only species is E. leucura, an animal of about the size of the Common Rat, with its fur thickly mixed with spines. It is found in Celebes.

The remaining genera belong to the Sigmodontes; they are rather more numerous than those of the Mures, but, on the whole, present somewhat less strongly marked generic differences.

IX. Hypogeomys, Grand., a very peculiar form of large size, with long ears, feet, and tail. There is only one species, H. antimena, a fawn-coloured rat about 9 inches long.

X. Nesomys, Peters., contains two species of long-haired rats, more or less rufous in colour, about the size of the House-rat. XI. Brachytarsomys, Günther, contains only B. albicauda, a pretty velvety-haired fawn-coloured rat, with short feet and a long tail. XII. Hallomys, Jent. The only species, H. audeberti, is very like a Nesomys, but has much longer hind-feet. This and the last three genera are confined to Madagascar. XIII. Hesperomys, Waterh. Molar structure as shown in fig. 2, B. The Mus of the New World, containing the great mass of the rats and mice of America, and having no very special generic characters common to all its members. This large genus is composed of at least seventy distinct species spread over all America from Canada to Cape Horn, of which none are quite as large as Mus decumanus, while several are considerably smaller than Mus musculus. They have been split up into ten sub-genera, of which perhaps the best marked is Rhipidomys, a small group containing about ten species, remarkably like Dormice in their habits and general appearance, having soft woolly fur and long hairy tails, and living entirely in trees, bushes, or in the roofs of houses. The other Hesperomys are all terrestrial in their habits, much as the Old-World rats and mice One only, H. spinosus, a native of Peru, has as yet been found with spines in its fur,-a rather remarkable circumstance when we remember how many of the tropical species of the allied genus Mus have more or less spiny fur.

are.

XIV. Holocheilus, Brandt, like Hesperomys, but with the third upper molars proportionately larger and the skull more stoutly built. This genus, confined to Brazil, contains about six species, some of which are the largest indigenous rats of America, Two species are aquatic in their habits, and have therefore developed short webs between the toes of their hind-feet.

XV. Sigmodon, Say and Ord, differs from Hesperomys in the pattern of the molar teeth. It contains one species only, the Ricerat, S. hispidus, which ranges from the United States to Ecuador. XVI. and XVII. Reithrodon, Waterh., and Ochetodon, Coues., more or less like Hesperomys, but with grooved upper incisors. The first of these is a South-American genus, and contains four rat-like species, one from Venezuela and the other three from Patagonia. The second consists of three North American mice, of about the Bize and proportions of the English Wood-mouse, Mus sylvaticus, XVIII. Neotoma, Say and Crd, a peculiar North-American group, in which the teeth have the prismatic appearance of those of the Arvicole (see VOLE). There are four species known as "Wood-rats," all of about the size of Mus decumanus, one of them, N cinerea, having a tail almost as bushy as a Squirrel's; the other three with ordinary scaly rat-like tails.

From the ranges of the genera given above it will be

seen that all the first group, the Mures, are confined to the Old World, and that of the Sigmodontes four genera are found in Madagascar and the rest in America, thus giving us a very remarkable instance of the peculiar affinity that the fauna of Madagascar has with that of the New World. This affinity is usually explained by the fact that those animals which show it belong as a rule to groupformerly distributed over both the Old and New Worlds, and that since the isolation of Madagascar these, owing to the competition of more highly-organized forms, have been exterminated or strongly modified throughout the continents of the eastern hemisphere, while in the western they have been preserved to the present time. Thus in the present case it seems probable that the original ancestors of the Murinæ, if not indeed of the whole family Muridæ, were Sigmodontes having molars with their cusps biserially arranged,1 and that these, being less powerful in the struggle for existence, as is shown by the manner in which roving members of the Mures rapidly multiply at the expense of the indigenous Sigmodontes of any place they may be introduced into, have gradually succumbed to the more recently developed Mures wherever the latter were able to penetrate,-Madagascar having previously become an island, and therefore inaccessible to them. Other groups, however, also probably descendants Sigmodont Muridæ, have become so strongly modified either as to structure or habits as to have been able to avoid the rivalry of the Mures, and thus to exist side by side with the latter; such probably are the Hamsters (Cricetus) and the Voles (Arvicola), both of which have modifications of the biserial arrangement of the molars. As to the Murines from Australia-a region isolated from the rest of the world far earlier than Madagascar-with their very various degrees of specialization, it seems probable, as Mr Wallace has suggested, that from very early times individual rats and mice have drifted on floating trees and other objects from island to island along the Indian archipelago down to Australia, and that the descendants of the earliest arrivals have become the most modified, and that others have been continually joining them, until we get the present state of affairs, namely, one or two genera very markedly different from Mus, others but slightly different, and finally numerous species not generically separable from the European and Asiatic rats and mice. (0. T.)

MOUSE-BIRD (Dutch Muisvogel), the name by which in Cape Colony and Natal the members of the genus Colius of Brisson are known-partly, it would seem, from their general coloration, but more probably from their singular habit of creeping along the boughs of trees with the whole tarsus applied to the branch. By the earlier systematists, who had few opportunities of examining the internal structure of exotic forms, Colius was placed among the Fringillida; but nearly all travellers who had seen one or another species of it in life demurred to that view, Still its position was doubtful till Dr Murie, in an elaborate treatise on its osteology (Ibis, 1872, pp. 262-280), showed that it was no Passerine, and subsequently (Ibis, 1873, p. 190) proposed Pamprodactylæ as the name of the group of which the Family Coliida is the sole type-this word being coined to indicate the obvious character of all the toes being ordinarily directed forwards, but by no means the only peculiar character these birds possess. A few years later most of Dr Murie's views were confirmed

1 The teeth of the extinct genus Cricetodon from the Miocene of France and Germany are in their essential structure quite similar to those of Hesperomys.

Australasia, p. 53, 1879.

Some other generic divisions have been suggested, but on grounds so slender as hardly to merit consideration.

of

Mouse-Bird.

rather Finch-like bill, a more or less crested head, a very Ing tail, and generally of a dun or slate-coloured plumage that sometimes brightens into blue or is pleasingly diversified with white or chestnut. They feed almost wholly on fruits, but occasionally take insects, in quest of which they pass in bands of fifteen or twenty from tree to tree, and hang in all attitudes from the branches as they feed. It is even said that they sleep suspended by their powerful and versatile toes. Seven species are believed to exist, all belonging to the Ethiopian Region (of which the Family is one of the most characteristic), and ranging from Abyssinia Kethwards. Three species inhabit Cape Colony. (A. N.) MOVERS, FRANZ KARL (1806-1856), & German Orienalist, was born at Koesfeld 17th July 1806, studied at Minster, was consecrated priest in 1829, and was professor in the Catholic theological faculty at Breslau from 1839 to his death on 28th September 1856. He was one of the most learned Catholics of Germany, and his elaborate work on Phoenicia1 attained a high and in some respects exaggerated reputation. It is a monument of great industry but of little judgment, and the progress of epiaphic studies has superseded much of the author's material The first volume in particular, which deals with the religion of the Phoenicians, may be viewed as quite out of date. Movers himself modified some of his views in his article "Phōnizien" in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopädie. Of his other writings two Biblical studies were of some importance, viz., his Kritische Untersuchungen über die Afiche Chronik (1834) and Latin essay on the two recensions of the text of Jeremiah (1837).

MOZAMBIQUE, a colonial province of Portugal, extanding for about 1200 miles along the east coast of Africa from Cape Delgado (10° 41' S. lat.) to Lorenzo Marques the south side of Delagoa Bay (25° 58′ S. lat.). On paper it forms an imposing territory of at least 38,000 square miles without any definite limit towards the interior; but in reality it consists of a few settlements and military posts feebly authoritative over the surrounding Die Phönizier: vol. i., Religion (1840); vol. ii., Das Phönizische Alterthum (3 parts, 1849-50-56).

The Portuguese divide the province into the military districts of Mozambique, Cape Delgado, Angoche, Quilimane, Tete, Sofala, and Lorenzo Marques, with the presidential territory of Bazaruto. The small coral island of Mozambique, which gives its name to the province and contains the provincial capital, lies in 15° S. lat., about 3 miles off the coast of the peninsula Mossuril. It is defended by three forts, of which the principal, St Sebastian, is built entirely of stone brought from Portugal in 1510. The streets of the town (properly St Sebastian of Mozambique) are narrow and crooked, and the stone-built flat-roofed houses are for the most part dull and lifeless in spite of their being washed with pink, brown, and white. Its principal buildings are the palace of the governorgeneral, formerly a Jesuit college, the custom-house, the hospital, and three churches. The population includes, besides Portuguese and Africans, Banyans, Parsees, and Arabs. The district of Cape Delgado includes the archipelago of the Querimba Islands, and on the opposite mainland Mucimba, Pangane, Lumbo, Quissanga, Montepes, Arimba, besides the colony of Europeans founded in 1857 on the Bay of Pemba. The chief town is Ibo, with over 2000 inhabitants, situated on the island of the same name. Of the twenty-eight islands some are nearly deserted, although both their climate and that of the opposite coast is good. Ibo has a considerable trade,-the exports being sesame, calumba root, oil-seeds, ivory, and wax. Turtle fishing is carried on; but little has been done to develop the agricultural capabilities of the district. The district of Angoche extends nominally as far south as the Quirimbo river, and includes the Angoche and Primeira islands and a small settlement on the Angoche river. The trade is very limited. The district of Quilimane is the centre of the commerce of the Zambesi, and the town ranks next to Mozambique as a port.. Near the village of St Marçal de Sena, the headquarters of the sub-military government of Sena, there are said to be very rich gold mines. Tete, to the north-west of Sena, is situated in the centre of an immense coal-basin. It includes a number of settlements on the Zambesi reaching as far as Zumbo, where a great native fair is held. The chief town is St Thiajo Major, about 250 miles from the mouth of the Zambesi. The climate is genial, and the soil is specially suitable for wheat, maize, tobacco, cotton, and sugar-cane. The chief town of the Sofala district is Sofala on the island of Chiloane in the estuary of the Sofala river. It was the original capital of the colony, and still possesses a good harbour, which, however, is not always easily accessible, and requires good piloting. The district is rich in gold mines, and is supposed by some to be the Ophir with which King Solomon traded. Inhambane, opposite Gasa, is very much encroached upon by the Zulu tribes. The natural products are similar to those in the Zambesi valley. A species of oil-plant is very abundant, as well as amber and sarsaparilla. The district of Lorenzo Marques is almost wholly confined to the town of that name (q.v.). The archipelago of Bazaruto comprises the islands of Bazaruto, Benguerua, Xegine, Bango, and Santa Carolina. The soil and climate are both excellent, and there are important pearl fisheries.

Before the 12th century this portion of the east coast of Africa had been partly colonized by Arabs from the Red Sea, who were in possession of the island of Mozambique and other districts when in 1498 the island was sighted by the Portuguese. From that time the Portuguese armadas were in the habit of frequently touching this coast on their way to India, and in 1505 Albuquerque erected a stockade at the mouth of the Sofala river and established the first Portuguese settlement under the name of the captaincy of chequered with disasters, and in the earlier years of their settleSofala. The fortunes of the Portuguese have been frequently ment they had great difficulty in withstanding successive attacks of the Kaffres, the Turks, and the Arabs. The Banyan traders began