jj^ CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4th Ser. 



teen specimens, one taken at Cuddeback, and twelve at 

 Carlotta, Humboldt County. In February, 1914, Professor 

 John F. Bovard and Mr. Alfred C. Shelton, of the Uni- 

 versity of Oregon, secured three more on Spencer Butte, 

 seven miles south of Eugene, Oregon; and in June of the 

 same year Mr. Vernon Bailey, of the Bureau of Biologi- 

 cal Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 collected an additional specimen in the same locality. 



During these later years other specimens, of which the 

 present writer has no record, may well have been collected; 

 for the species is fairly abundant and widely distributed in 

 certain sections of the humid coast belt, and its meager rep- 

 resentation in collections is obviously to be accounted for 

 through ignorance of its habits rather than any actual 

 rarity. 



Doubtless a few residents in localities where the species 

 occurs have long known of its existence. Our attention, 

 while working at Mendocino City, was first called to it by 

 small boys. In a letter to the writer Mr. Wilder states that 

 middle-aged men have told him of getting these "red mice" 

 around the school house when they were pupils there. 



The comparative recency of knowledge of Phenacomys 

 longicaudits on the part of systematists, and the poverty of 

 material representative of it, have had two effects, one bene- 

 ficial, the other detrimental : The species has been preserved 

 from the burden of synonymy which so involves all our 

 more widely known species, it never, in fact, having been 

 known by any other name than the one which it bears at 

 present ; and it has previous to the present time been im- 

 possible to determine with any definiteness the systematic 

 and ecologic status of the species. This paper aims to be 

 a contribution to the latter problem. 



It should perhaps be here noted that the name "lemming- 

 mouse," which has been applied to Phenacomys, is not strictly 

 correct. For this name should be reserved for the members 

 of the supergeneric group of the Lemmi, which includes 

 Synaptomys, Dicrostonyx and Lemrmis. On the other hand 

 Phenacomys belongs to the supergeneric group of the Microti, 

 or voles, which includes also Fiber, Evotomys and Microtiis 

 (see Miller, 1896, p. 8). 



