MUElDiE— SIGMODONTES— HESPEROMYS (JAL1EORNICUS. 



90 



from average leucopus in its sootiness, being, in fact, perhaps darker than leuco- 

 pus ever becomes, unless in the "gossypinus" variety ; and here the shade is 

 different, being of a leaden grayish-brown, mixed with a good deal of black, 

 yet watered throughout with fulvous. The color reaches to the wrist and 

 ankle, but the upper surfaces of the hands and feet are whitish. On the 

 sides, the color shades into a pale tawny-cinnamon or brownish-fulvous, very 

 nearly of the same tint as in eremicus. The under parts can hardly be called 

 white, owing to a suffusion of leaden-gray showing through the white tips of 

 the hairs. The tail, as already stated, is dark, and not much paler below than 

 above, with a very indistinct — sometimes inappreciable — dividing line. The 

 ears show blackish in the dried state ; probably dusky flesh-color in life. The 

 very long whiskers, many of which reach to the shoulder, are partly black 

 and partly white. 



Among the Fort Tejon specimens (Xanlus), we find two examples of 

 californicus instantly distinguishable from the numbers of "gambeli" with 

 which they are associated, and typically representing californicus. Several 

 Tejon "gambeli", indeed, show a tendency toward californicus in their large 

 size and length of ears and tail, but nothing quite up to this remarkable form. 

 Besides the dimensions tabulated below, No. 7478 shows these measurements : 

 Nose to eye, 0.55 ; to ear, 1.02 ; breadth of ear, 0.70 ; pencil of hairs at end 

 of tail, 0.30; whiskers, 1.75. The soles, which have the ordinary six tuber- 

 cles, are almost entirely naked ; the ear is sparsely and delicately pilous. 

 The hand and feet are white above; the tail is indistinctly bicolor, brown 

 above, whitish below ; it is nearly Jive inches long, with the terminal pencil 

 about 5.25, which, the body being only 3.60, is the longest tail, both rela- 

 tively and absolutely, we have seen in a United States Hesperomys. 



Table XXVII. — Measurements of four specimens of Hesperomys californicus. 



The different H. californicus aside, all the California Hesperomys we have 

 seen are referable to "gambeli", excepting the Fort Crook series, which 



