82 Miller — Syno'psis of the Voles of the Genus Phenacomys. 



sufficient extent. A8 might be expected, nieniVjevs of the various colonies 

 differ from eacli other. Tliese differences are, however, too sliglit to be 

 worthy of recognition ])y name. The most northerly specimen that I 

 have seen, a female collected at Fishing Lake, Alberta, on September 17, 

 1896 (No. 81477, U. S. National Museum, Biological Survey collection), 

 has the fur much less thick and woolly than in typical orophilus. The feet 

 are brownish as in P. iiitermediui^, but in all other characters it agrees per- 

 fectly with oropliilns. S{)ecimens from St. Marys Lake, Montana, aver- 

 age a trifle smaller than tliose from the type localitj'. 



Since Phenacomi/s oroj)Iiiliis was first described it has received tw'o ad- 

 ditional names. The first of these, P. trnel Allen, was based on the dis- 

 torted skin and fragmentarj^ skull of a young animal supposed to have 

 been taken in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a region so isolated that 

 if inhabited by the genus itwould be expected to furnish a species differ- 

 ent from those occurring farther west. The type specimen is, however, 

 exactly like immature oropliilas in color and in enamel pattern. In size 

 it agrees perfectly except that the tail, in its present condition fa few. of 

 the proximal vertebrae re'moved, the rest dried in tlie skin), is about 7 

 millimeters shorter than in fresh specimens of the same age. No weight 

 can be attached to this one difference in the absence of all others. Further- 

 more, it is practically certain that the type was not collected in the Black 

 Hills of South Dakota, but in the Black Hills of Wyoming, now known 

 as the Laramie ^lountains. It was taken on August 10, 1857, by Dr. 

 Hammond, a memljer of the expedition commanded by Lieut. F. T. 

 Bryan. I have not been able to find any account of the Bryan expedi- 

 tion of 1857 further than the statement, on page 91 of the eleventh volume 

 of the Pacific Railroad Reports, that "the wagon-road expedition under 

 Lieutenant Bryan this year [1857] was confined to routes which he had 

 previously mapped and explored." The mai> of Bryan's routes shows 

 that he never entered the region now known as the Black Hills, but that 

 his course followed up the Platte River and Lodge Pole Creek through the 

 Laramie ISIountains. It is therefore almost beyond doul)t that the type 

 of Pheiiacomi/.'i fnwi was collected in ADiany County or Laramie County, 

 Wyoming, a few miles northeast of the present town of Laramie. This 

 region is almost continuous with the mountains included in the known 

 range of ofo})liilvM. Flienncoinys ommontis Rhoads was based on a speci- 

 men from the Mf)unt Baker range in British Columbia, ju.*t north of the 

 United States boundary. Four topotypes in my collection are indistin- 

 guishable from P. orophilus. 



Phenacomys preblei Merriam. , 



Phenacotnyx preblei, Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, X, p. 45, March 

 16, 1897. 



Type locality. — Longs Peak, Colorado. Type in U. S. National ^Museum 

 (^ adult. No. 7451o), lUological Survey collection. 



Geographic didribution. — Phenacomys preblei is at present known from 

 the type locality only. 



