286 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.86 



in a runway in heavy matted bluegrass on low ground bordering a 

 cottonfield. A pine vole taken June 17, 1937, at Norris, Anderson 

 County, was submitted for identification by Dr. A. H. Cahn. 



Campbell County: Highcliff, 2 ; La FoUette, 1. 

 Fayette County: Hickory Withe, 1. 



PITYMYS PINETORUM SCALOPSOIDES (Audubon and Bachraan): 

 Northern Pine Mouse 



The northern pine mouse is mainly a forest vole and is usually 

 found along the margins of wooded tracts, but it spreads into dense 

 forests during periods of abnormal abundance. It has been trapped 

 on rocky hill slopes, in dense woods where there is a thick carpet of 

 matted leaves, at low altitudes along the moist banks of mountain 

 streams, and in sphagnum swamps. In eastern Temiessee it has been 

 caught also along edges of cultivated fields. Komarek and Komarek 

 (1938, p. 159) state that pine mice were taken in tunnels in an apple 

 orchard and also in a marshy area bordering woods at Greenbrier, 

 Sevier County, and under matted leaves in open deciduous woods at 

 Cades Cove, Blount County. 



Carter County: Watauga Valley, 1. 

 Hawkins County: Rogersville, 1. 



ONDATRA ZIBETHICA ZIBETHICA (Linnaeus): Muskrat 



The common muskrat formerly occurred in most of the streams and 

 ponds of Tennessee. At the time the early traders and trappers 

 penetrated into the State, pelts of muskrats apparently were not an 

 important item for barter. No reference is made to them in pub- 

 lished accounts until 1788, when the General Assembly of the State 

 of Franklin fixed the compensation for a justice in signing a war- 

 rant at one muskrat skin (Williams, 1924, p. 215). Andre Michaux, 

 while residing at Nashville in 1795, listed (Williams, 1928, p. 335) 

 the muskrat as occurring in the vicinity. Rhoads (1896, pp. 186-187) 

 concluded that the food of the muskrat in Tennessee consisted very 

 largely of mussels. In a fish dam on the Holston River, near its 

 junction with the French Broad River [Knox County], Rhoads found 

 that mussel shells had been wedged in among the rocks by the 

 muskrats. 



Local residents of Fayette and Shelby Counties reported to Per- 

 ry go that muskrats were getting scarce since the drainage of the 

 cypress swamps. A few muskrats are trapped each year in the 

 marshes around Reelfoot Lake. Perrygo and Schaefer found that 

 they were fairly common during October 1937 along the Cumberland 

 River and some of its smaller tributaries west of Indian Mound. 



