180 FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM ZOOLOGY, VOL. XI. 



the land is chiefly open and grassy. White oaks and a few yellow 

 pine occur also, and the region I should judge was more Transition 

 than that at Beaverton." The season was now late, December, and 

 the heavy rains had set in, making collecting arduous and difficult, 

 so Mr. Heller was instructed to return south, preparatory to going 

 into Lower California and the San Pedro Martir mountains. A stop 

 of four days was made at Grant's Pass, type locality of Thomomys 

 leucodon, which is situated on a level plateau on the north bank of the 

 Rogue River in a mountainous region. The country is composed 

 largely of granite or eruptive rocks, and is covered with a scattered 

 forest of yellow pine, Pinus jeffreyi, sugar pine, Pinus lambertina, 

 Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga taxifolia, and several species of white and 

 live oaks. It is a Transition region allied more closely to the Sacra- 

 mento Valley than to the Willamette. 



ORDER UNGULATA. 



FAM. CERVID^E. 

 ODOCOILEUS. 



Odocoileus columbianus. 



Odocoileuscolumbianus. (Rich.), Faun. Bor. Amer. , 1829, p. 257. 

 Elliot, Syn. N. Am. Mamm. , 1903, p. 41. 



Two specimens Agness, Curry Co., Oregon. 



The genus ODOCOILEUS was proposed by Rafinesque (Atlantic 

 Journal, 1832, No. 3, p. 109) on a fossil premolar of some kind of 

 deer. In the same year he instituted the genus Panallodon (Month. 

 Am. Journ. Geol. and Nat. Scien.) on a jawbone of some mammal 

 which he thought was "akin to Mazama" (Am. Month. Mag., 1817, 

 vol. i, p. 44) another of his genera comprising "the Brockets." Dr. 

 Merriam (Proc. Biol. Soc. , Wash., 1898, p. 99) assumed that this fossil 

 tooth belonged to the "Virginian deer, or some closely related form"- 

 this, however, being incapable of proof and advocated the adoption 

 of Odocoileus 'for our white-tailed deer, and rejected Panallodon, quite 

 correctly, on its insufficient diagnosis. It becomes a question worthy 

 of serious consideration whether a genus founded upon some fossil 

 remains of an otherwise entirely unknown animal of a past age should 

 be unhesitatingly adopted for a group of existing species that may be, 

 in the majority of its characters, widely different from the extinct 

 form. Also whether it is not inadvisable to adopt any genus of 

 Paleontology in any branch of Zoology. It would seem that the rule 

 forbidding the adoption of a genus in a branch of Zoology if already 



