1896.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 185 



part of Tennessee west of the Great Smoky Mountains. In this re- 

 spect its distribution, or rather its absence, corresponded exactly 

 "with that of the Song Sparrow, Melospiza fascicda. Wherever I 

 found the supposed runways of this vole, the traps only yielded 

 the Mole Shrew, Blarina hreviccmda and the Pine Vole, M. pine- 

 torum and even these in such small numbers that the residents of 

 the State may well congratulate themselves on their immunity from 

 these little pests. 



On the summit of Roan Mountain two specimens of the Meadow 

 Vole were secured in a little " bulrush " swamp below Cloudland 

 hotel, about 100 yards from the Tennessee line in Mitchell County, 

 N. Carolina. No specimens were taken in Tennessee, but I feel 

 justified in including it here, not only on this nearby record, but be- 

 cause similar runways to those in which the Mitchell County spec- 

 imens were taken were observed in swampy ground near the sum- 

 mit of the mountain in Carter County, Tennessee, during my ascent 

 thither from the Doe River ravine. 



There is not the slightest tendency toward any variation in the 

 Roan Mountain specimens from those found near Philadelphia at 

 the same. season, and this is good proof that the distribution of 

 this vole is continuous along the ridge of the southern Alleghenies 

 and much farther south than in the adjoining lowlands. 



Specimens — Roan Mountain, Mitchell Co., N. Carolina (6,300 ft.), 

 2 ^s. 



9. Microtus pinetorum (LeC). Pine-woods Vole. 



This seems to be the only representative of the Microtinee in 

 Western and Middle Tennessee. It may be said to be numerous in 

 the woods and their vicinity, forming tunnels in edges of open grass 

 fields, much after the manner of Wilson's Vole. None were taken 

 east of the valley of East Tennessee. The seventeen specimens 

 from Tennessee show no characters which are not to be found in 

 specimens from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. Those 

 from Samburg, however, are more uniformly dark beneath, the sil- 

 very sheen seen in eastern specimens being clouded, in Reelfoot 

 Lake examples, by muddy brown over the entire underparts. The 

 same may be said of those from Raleigh and Bellevue, while those 

 from East Tennessee are similar to Pennsylvania skins. It may 

 be remarked that while the Pine Vole shows great constancy in 

 its characters over a large region included between and almost 

 overlapping the Austroriparian and Alleghenian faunse, the most 

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