128 Merriam American Wood Rat*. 



The members of this series are a very compact group, comprising if. 

 cinerea with its subspecies driimmondi and occidentalis, and N. orolestes nob. 



Neotoma orolestes sp. nov. 



Type from SAGAUCHE VALLEY (20 miles west of Sagauche) COLORADO. No. 

 48215 cT a d- U. S. Nat. Museum, Department of Agriculture Collection. 

 Collected August 13, 1892, by J. Alden Loring. (Original number 482). 



Measurements (taken in flesh). Type: Total length 413 ; tail vertebrae 175 ; 

 hind foot 41. Ear from anterior base 31 (dry skin). 



General characters. Similar to N. cinerea; size large; tail large 

 and bushy; sphenopalatine vacuities open. 



Color. Upper parts in summer pelage buffy-ochraceous, more or less 

 suffused with fulvous and everywhere lined with black hairs ; top of head 

 grayish, becoming clear gray on nose ; cheeks buffy-ochraceous ; unler parts 

 and feet white ; color of hind legs reaching out a short distance over tarsus ; 

 sides of belly with plumbeous underfur ; tail bicolor ; dorsal side concolor 

 with back on proximal J, becoming dusky on distal ; ventral side whitish, 

 obscured by pale fulvous proximally. 



Cranial diameters. Skull similar to that of N. cinerea but differing in 

 having the sphenopalatine vacuities open, the ascending wings of the 

 palatines leaving a long open slit on each side of the presphenoid and an 

 terior third of the basisphenoid. The mandible differs in having the angle 

 larger, longer, and more everted, the extreme tip falling outside of the 

 vertical plane of the condyle. 



