Size large; ears moderate, ear from crown (taken in dry skin) 9 or 10
millimeters; eyes prominent; whiskers long and sensitive; fore feet
short and weak; hind feet long and powerful, provided with four
well-developed toes; tail very long, usually 30 to 40 per cent longer
than the body. Cranium triangular, the occiput forming the base and the
point of the nose the apex of the triangle, much flattened, auditory and
particularly mastoid bullae conspicuously inflated.


COLOR.

General color above, brownish buffy, varying in some specimens to
lighter buffy tints, grizzled with black; oblique hip stripes white;
tail with dark-brown or blackish stripes above and below, running into
blackish about halfway between base and tip, and with two lateral side
stripes of white to a point about halfway back; tail tipped with pure
white for about 40 millimeters (Pl. I). Underparts white, hairs white to
bases, with some plumbeous and buffy hairs about base of tail; fore legs
and fore feet white all around; hind legs like back, brown above, hairs
with gray bases, becoming blackish (fuscous-black or chætura-black)
about ankles, hairs on under side white to bases; hind feet white above,
dark-brown or blackish (near fuscous) below.

Color variations in a series of 12 specimens from the type locality and
points widely scattered through the range of _spectabilis_ consist in
minor modifications of the degree of coloration, length of white tip of
tail, and length of white lateral tail stripes. In general the color
pattern and characters are remarkably uniform. Young specimens, while
exhibiting the color pattern and general color of adults, are
conspicuously less brown, and more grayish.