224 ORIGIN OF LIFE IN AMERICA 



a number of species are now known from southern Spain 1 and 

 Portugal, owing to the researches of Mr. Thomas, Mr. Miller 

 and Dr. Forsyth Major. To judge from its recent distribu- 

 tion, these voles of the sub-genus or genus Pitymys ought 

 to be of very great antiquity, yet not a single fossil specimen 

 has ever been found. The most remarkable fact in the dis- 

 tribution of Pitymys is that it is entirely confined to Europe 

 in the Old World, whereas across the Atlantic, in Mexico, 

 we again meet with a member of this group known as the 

 Jalapa meadow vole (Pitymys quasitor). It lives there at an 

 altitude of about 5,000 feet. Only two other species are 

 known from North America, one (P. nemoralis) from the 

 Boston Mountains in the Indian Territory, the other from 

 certain areas in the eastern States. The latter (P. pine- 

 torum) occurs from southern Florida to Carolina, a variety 

 of it on the Allegheny Mountains, and another from Long 

 Island to the borders of Illinois. The range of the three 

 American species is disconnected, and confined to Mexico and 

 the United States. What is the relationship of these species 

 to one another, and which is the oldest, will have to be deter- 

 mined by future researches, also whether the extinct species 

 discovered in Pennsylvania by Professor Cope really belongs 

 to Pitymys or Microtus proper. At any rate, there is nothing 

 in the range of Pitymys that might lead us to suspect that it 

 entered North America from the north-west, no member of 

 the group having as yet been found in any part of Canada or 

 Alaska. In Europe Pitymys is unknown in the north-west, 

 whereas a number of species inhabit the south-west. Hence 

 the American group of Pitymys may possibly have been de- 

 rived from one or more species which crossed the Atlantic 

 on the land connection above referred to. 



The hare family (Leporidae), as a whole, has a very wide 

 distribution in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, but some 

 of the sub-genera, which are gradually being raised to the 

 higher dignity of genera, are confined within certain circum- 

 scribed limits. In his study on the recent and fossil Lago- 

 morpha, Dr. Forsyth Major * comes to the conclusion that this 

 family might conveniently be divided, according to the osteo- 



* Major, Forsyth, " Fossil and recent Lagomorpha," pp. 514515. 



