Merriaia — American Wood Rats. 127 



nuiture specimens of A^ pinctoruin, but the marked cranial char- 

 acters serve to clistinguisli it at once. No specimens in summer 

 pelage are at hand from the type locality, but specimens from 

 Herniosillo and Magdalena, apparenty the same sub-species, are 

 grayer, the black hairs of the back are inconspicuous, and the 

 upper side of the tail is less black. 



Neotoma intermedia angusticeps subsp. nov. 



Tape from S. W. Corner of Grant Co., New JNIkxico (only 5 miles from 

 Mexican boundary). No. 'f^ (J ad. Merriam Collection. Collected April 

 12, 1886, by A. W. Anthony (Original number G2). 



Measurements of type specimen: Total length 335 (measured in flesh). Tail 

 vertebrae 150 ; hind foot 33 ; ear from anterior base 25 (in dry skin). 



General charaeter.s. — Similar to iV, albigiila, but ears smaller ; 

 color more strongly fulvous ; skull more elongated and narrower. 



Color. — (Summer pelage) Upper parts fulvous, becoming ocbraceous buff 

 on the bead, and abundantly lined with black hairs; feet and under parts 

 creamy wbite to roots of hair, except on sides of belly where the basal hair 

 IS plumbeous; tail bicolor, grayish l)rown above, white beneath. 



Cranial duiroders. — Skull similar to that of alhigula but longer and more 

 slender : Basal length 42 ; basilar length of Hensel 39 5 ; greatest zygomatic 

 breadth 24 ; interorbital constriction 6. Cranium rather smoothly rounded 

 — not so angular as in intermedia and alhigula; zygomatic arches narrow and 

 less angular i)osteriorly than usual in the group ; frontals broad interorbitally 

 but not widening rapidly behind constriction, the orbital mai-gins neitlier 

 beaded nor upturned ; nasals cuneate; ascending branches of premaxilUe 

 normally thickened behind nasals but not divaricating; interparietal shiekl 

 subqiiadrate ; anterior loop of m i only slightly indented by sulcus. 



Subgenus teonoma Gray, 1843. 



Type, Neotoma einerea r/rMmmondi (Richanlson) from the Rocky Mts. 57° N. 



Tail very large, bushy, and somewhat distichous, like a squirrel's ; hind 

 feet very large. 



Rostrum much elongateil, measuring more than one-third the total length 

 (if cranium ; posterior roots of zygomata widely spreading ; sagittal area 

 long, narrow, and sharply angular, its broadest part far back, on or nearly 

 on plane of anterior border of interparietal, whence the sides bend abruptly 

 back to interparietal shields ; spheno- palatine vacuties closed or open.* 



*In a previous communication (Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash, viii, July, 1893, 112), I called at- 

 tention to the circumstance that the long vacuities always present on each side of the 

 presphenoid and anterior part of the basisphenoid in Neotoma proper, are closed by as- 

 cending wings from the palatine bones in A^. einerea and ocndentalis. I then regarded 

 this character as of sub-generic weight. It now appears to be of specific weight only, 

 for the vacuities are open in the new species from Colorado here described as N. orolestes. 



