No. 18. — The Land Mammals of Newfoundland. 

 By Outram Bangs. 



The great island of Newfoundland lying close under the eastern 

 corner of the Labrador peninsula is a region where the unlooked for is 

 often found. One without previous knowledge of its biota would 

 expect to find there all the plants and animals of the neighboring main- 

 land, and these only slightly differentiated. Such, however, is not 

 the case and the mammalian fauna is more remarkable for the 

 species that are lacking than for the highly differentiated ones that it 

 contains. The island is situated too far north to have a large resident 

 ornis, still many of the non migratory birds found there have be- 

 come different and one by one have been separated by name from 

 their mainland representatives. Its flora is even more remarkable 

 and contains a number of southern, pine-barren or sand-plain types 

 not found on the adjacent mainland. 



The means by which Newfoundland has acquired its biota have 

 been studied in the most thorough manner by the distinguished 

 botanist, Prof. M. L. Fernald whose paper on the subject, Rhodora, 

 July, 1911, 13, p. 109-162, should be read with care by all interested in 

 the distribution of life in North America. 



The island attracted my attention in the early days of my work on 

 North American mammals — it was a virgin field — and the services 

 of Mr. Ernest Doane were secured to make collections there. During 

 the two or three years that Mr. Doane was sending me specimens, I 

 described the different species peculiar to the island in short papers 

 always having in mind an extended account of the mammals for 

 publication at some future time. This project I have now abandoned, 

 but trust that the following notes, discussions of the different species, 

 and nominal list of all known to occur may be useful to one who may 

 undertake a monograph of the biota of Newfoundland, one of the 

 larger islands of the world. 



The following notes are based upon exceptionally fine material, 

 except in the case of the bear and of the wolf. Besides the large 

 series of specimens collected by Mr. Doane the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology has numerous skulls of the larger mammals, sent many 

 years ago by Mr. S. M. Nelson, and a series of five Black bear skulls 

 procured by Dr. John C. Phillips during one of his expeditions. 



