276 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1899. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO NEW GRAY FOXES. 

 BY GERRIT 8. MILLER, JR. 



The United States National Museum contains numerous speci- 

 mens of small gray foxes from Central America, south of the 

 Isthmus of Tehuantepec. These represent two hitherto undescribed 

 species, one from the arid tropical coast of Yucatan, the other 

 from the humid tropical region of Guatemala and Chiapas. To 

 the kindness of Mr. D. G. Elliot I owe the opportunity to com- 

 pare these animals with the type of Urocyon jraterculiis, the prop- 

 erty of the Field Columbian Museum. Dr. C Hart Merriam has 

 placed at my disposal the Mexican and Guatemalan gray foxes in 

 the Biological Survey collection I publish this paper here by 

 permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 Urocyon parvidens sp. nov. 



Type d' (skiu and skull), No. -H;|||, United States National 

 Museum, collected at Merida, Yucatan, by A. Schott. Original 

 number 385. 



General characters. — Most like Urocyon fraterculus (Elliot)/ 

 from San Fehpe, Yucatan, but teeth smaller, tail shorter, and 

 color more fulvous. 



Color. — Fur of body composed of two kinds of hair, one short, 

 dense, and woolly, the other long, stiff and sparse. Except in the 

 whitish areas where they are pale to base, the hairs of the under 

 fur ai-e cinereous through lower third, then creambuff* or pinkish 

 buff to tip. The long hairs are whitish at base (conspicuously 

 paler than the bases of the under fur) gradually shading to dark 

 brown near middle ; the tip black. Between the black tip and the 

 brown median area is a conspicuous white ring, the base of which 

 is level with the tij^s of the under fur. The varying combinations 

 of the buff of the under fur and the white rings and black tips of 

 the longer hairs give the dorsal surface its color. On the head the 

 under fur, here darkened to tawny ochraceous, and the white rings 



^ Urocyon einero-argentatus fraterculus Elliot, Field Columbian Museum 

 Publication 11, Zoological Series, i, No. 3, p. 80, May, 1896. 



