LIST OF NORTH AMERICAN RECENT MAMMALS, 1923. 



By Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., 



Curator, Division of Mammals, United States National Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The North American recent mammals in the United States National 

 Museum number about 166,000 specimens, including 1,435 types.* 

 More than three-fourths of this material is in the Biological Survey 

 collection, United States Department of Agriculture,- the remainder, 

 including the seals, sirenians, cetaceans, and all of the older, more 

 historic specimens, is in the Museum proper. The material derived 

 from these two sources furnishes so complete a representation of the 

 mammals of North America that, of the 2,554 forms now ^ recognized, 

 only 171 are not included. 



In preparing this list the following plan has been adopted. In 

 1885 * Dr. F. W. True published ''A Provisional List of the Mammals 

 of North and Central America and the West Indian Islands," a 

 summary of the North American mammal fauna as then known. To 

 the species included in it I have added those since recognized, the 

 status of which at the end of the year 1922 had not been questioned 

 in some recent monographic work where full synonymy and references 

 may be consulted. Forms in regard to whose standing there is 

 difference of opinion, but which have not been treated in a mono- 

 graphic paper, are included; but in cases of this kind references are 

 given to the conflicting views. An asterisk is placed before the name 

 of each form represented in the national collection. A dagger indicates 

 that the type also is here. It is to be understood that, especially in 

 unrevised genera, the indication that a form is in the collection implies 

 nothing more than the presence of a specmien of the animal on which 



1 A detailed statement concerning the entire collection of mammals in the National Museum has been 

 published in the Annual Report for the year ending June 30, 1922 (p. 61, Dec. 20, 1922). 



" The number of specimens entered in the catalogues of this collection up to the end of December, 1923 , 

 is 126,955. This material, brought together whoUy by the activities of the Biological Survey, belongs , 

 according to act of Congress (sundry civil act of Mar. 3, 1879), to the United States National Museum. By 

 the same authority it is maintained as a separate collection pending investigations by members of the 

 survey. The wording of the act is a? follows: "And all collections of rocks, minerals, soUs, fossils, and 

 objects of natural history, archeology, and ethnology made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geo- 

 logical Survey, or by any other parties of the Ooveriunent of the United States, when no longer needed 

 for the investigations in progress, shall be deposited in the National Museimi." 



' In 1885 the number known was 363; in 1900 this has been increased to about 1,450 (Miller and Rehn 

 Systematic results of the study of North American Land Mammals to the clonic of the year 1900; Proc . 

 Boston Soc. Nat. ffist., vol. 30, pp. 1-352, Dec. 27, 1901), and in 1911 to about 2,100 (Miller, List of North 

 American Land Mammals in the United States National Museum, 1911; Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 79 

 Dec. 31, 1912). 



« Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 7, 1884, pp. 587-611 (appendix). 1885. 



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