Vol. V] TAYLOK~.\'ElV SUBGENUS OF PHENACOMYS II3 



A INTRODUCTION 



Dr. C. Hart Merriam, in describing Phenacomys alhipes 

 (1901, p. 125), referred to Phenacomys longicaudus as being 

 one of the rarest and least known mammals of the world. 

 At that time only three specimens of longicaudus had been 

 collected : the type, at Marshfield, Coos County, Oregon, an 

 aberrant specimen at Meadows, Lane County, in the same 

 state, and an example found dead on a road at Lierly's 

 Ranch, near Mt. Sanhedrin, Mendocino County, California. 

 The specimens from Oregon were transmitted to the United 

 States National Museum by Aurelius Todd of Eugene ; while 

 the lone example from California, collected by A. S. Bun- 

 nell, was part of a collection which went to the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



The species first became formally known to science 

 through the publication of the original description by True 

 (November 15, 1890). For twenty-two years thereafter the 

 species was represented in the museums of the United States 

 by not more than the three specimens mentioned above. 



According to Bailey (1915, p. 148) Dr. William Bebb of 

 Los Angeles, in 1907, showed him several specimens of the tree 

 mouse which he had taken at an Oregon lumber camp. "The 

 men were chopping down tall Douglas spruces and he watched 

 when the trees came down and caught several of the stunned 

 or crippled mice as the nests were crushed by the fall." 



In 1912 a specimen was secured by a game warden on the 

 slope of Chaparral Mountain above Maplecreek Postoffice, 

 Humboldt County, California, and turned over to Mr. C. I. 

 Clay, of Eureka, who forwarded it to the Museum of Verte- 

 brate Zoology of the University of California. The follow- 

 ing year, through the activities of the California North Coast 

 Counties Expedition sent out from the same Museum, six- 

 teen specimens were collected at Mendocino City, Mendo- 

 cino County, California, and one at Lierly's Ranch, four 

 miles south of Mount Sanhedrin, in the same county. Dur- 

 ing the spring and fall of 1913, Mr. H. E. Wilder, of 

 Carlotta, Humboldt County, California, collected and trans- 

 mitted to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology a series of thir- 



