1894.] NATURAL, SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 219 



now infested by it, were yet in the loosening grip of the ice age. Mr. 

 Paret writes me that he has no knowledge of the recent existence of 

 a cave rat in Hartman's Cave. I have been told that such an 

 animal is found among the cliiis and rocky crests of the Kittatinny 

 range, on the opposite side of the Delaware River, in AVarren Co. , 

 New Jersey. 



4. The lack of any trace of guaiviiir/ apoit the bones of mammals, 

 from Hartman\^ Cave, not now existing in America, as contrasted with 

 the uniformly rat-eaten condition of the bones of those knoivn to have 

 inhabited Pennsylvania in (he history of man. — The specimens of 

 Dicotyles pennsylvaniciis and Castoroides ohioensis from Hartman's 

 Cave are ungnawed, as is likewise the ramus of caribou there taken, 

 while those of the beaver, elk, and bison, animals recently extermi- 

 nated in Pennsylvania, show the unmistakable marks of a rat's 

 teeth. 



It, therefore, appears that the evidence, so far as we know it, tends 

 only to establish the identity of the fossil Neotoma of Baird with the 

 species now living in the same localities. On the other side the 

 argument is purely presumptive, and if we admit a distinction (no 

 differences being proven) between magister and pennsylvanica, the fos- 

 silized remains of foxes, wolves, beavers and other animals found in 

 association with the rat bones in the Carlisle and Stroudsburg caves 

 are as fully entitled to specific separation from their living Penn- 

 sylvania representatives as are the rats. No one, who would be un- 

 willing to thus follow such a precedent to its logical conclusion, can 

 consistently endorse the precedent. Had Prof Baird been aware of 

 the facts as we now know them, the question would never have arisen, 

 or if it had, would have been decided in the case of the rat as it 

 was decided in that of the fox and wolf and beaver. 



Habits and distribution of Neotoma magister. — I paid a visit to 

 Lewis's Rocks, the type locality of Mr. Stone's specimens of j)enn- 

 sylvanica, in the spring of 1893, for the purpose of obtaining some 

 knowledge of the animal's habits. The rocks lie at the top of the 

 mountain and form the culminating point of a rocky outcrop, topping 

 the ridge for a mile or more in this locality, and which at intervals 

 assumes a very rugged and castellated outline. The cave rats live 

 in the more inaccessible fissures and clefts of these rocks, selecting 

 for their dormitories those which are most secure from the approach 

 or entrance of the predaceous animals which abound in such situa- 



