VOL. VIII, PP. 83-96 JULY 18, 1893 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF TIIK 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



REDISCOVERY OF THE MEXICAN KANGAROO RAT, 

 DIPODOMYS PHILLIPSI GRAY 



BY C. HART MERRIAM, M. P. 

 WITH FIELD NOTES BY E. W. NELSON. 



The first kangaroo rat known to naturalists was described by 

 J. E. Gray, in 1841, under the name Dipodomys phttlipsi* Both 

 species and genus were new. and were based on a single speci- 

 men presented to the British Museum by John Phillips on his 

 return from Real del Monte, in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, 

 in the vicinity of which place it was supposed to have been 

 obtained.'!" This specimen still remains unique, so far as authen- 

 tic published records go, notwithstanding the fact that numer- 

 ous museums in this country and Evirope contain specimens 

 labeled D. plnU'ipxi which have been examined and treated as 



^Dipodomys phiUipii Gray, Annals and Magazine Nat. Hist.,-vn, Aug., 

 1841, 522. In the original article the name was spelled phiUipii by typo 

 grapical error ; it was corrected to phiUipsii a few months later by the 

 same author. (Am. Jour. Sci., XLII, 1842, 335.) 



f Real del Monte is in the mountains at the extreme north end of the 

 Valley of Mexico, about 50 miles northeast of the City of Mexico. 



12 BIOT,. Soc. WARU., Vor,. VIII, 1893. (S3) 



