Vol. X, pp. 119-125 November 5, 1896 



PROCEEDINGS 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 



h 



THE COTTON MOUSE, PEROMYSCUS GOSSYPINUS. 

 BY OUTRAM BANGS. 



The present revision of the subspecies of Permnyscus gossypinus 

 is based on the study of several hundred specimens in the col- 

 lection of E. A. and 0. Bangs and the type and five topotypes 

 of Peromyscus cjossyphius viisdssippiensis kindly lent me by Mr. 

 Samuel N. Rhoads. 



LeConte, in 1853, bestowed the name Hesperomys gossypinus 

 upon the large dark-colored, white-footed mouse of Georgia. 

 Two years later the same author named what he supposed to be 

 another species from the same general region, calling it Hesper- 

 omys cognatus. This last name has troubled subsequent mam- 

 malogists not a little, until Mr. Rhoads, in his ' Mammals of 

 Tennessee,'* in 1896, relegated it to its proper place, and it 

 became a synonym of P. gossypinus, based on the young in the 

 pelage assumed after the plumbeous first coat has disappeared. 

 There is, however, a name earlier than LeConte's H. gossypinus 

 that must be considered. It is Hesperomys pollonotus of Wag- 

 ner, described in 1843. t This animal is said to have come 



*Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1896, p. 189. 



t Archly fiir Naturgeschichte von Wiegmanii, 1843, 2ter. Bd., pp. 51-52. 

 "Aus eben diesem Staate [Georgia] herriihrend liess mir'Prof. Schinz 

 zwei Miiuse zuv Ansicht zukommen, unter denen die eine mit M. Lecontii 

 iibereinstiinmt. Der aiidern, die mir unbeschrieben scheint, habe ich 

 den Namen Mus jMllonoius beigelegt : M. supra flavido-plumbeus .subtus 

 pedibusque albidus ; auriculis niediocribus, dent. prim, integris, caiida 

 pilosa abbreviata. Korper 2^^ ¥^^, Schwanz V^ "1"' , Ohren ^'" , Hinter- 

 fiiss T" . Wie schon ervviihnt, werden beide nicht zu Mus gehoren, doch 

 ist mir ihr Gebiss unbekannt." 



21-Bioi.. Soc. Wash., Vol. X, 18<J(i (110) 



