The Cotton Mouse, Peromyscus Gossypinus. 121 



slight in comparison with what they were in life. This is strik- 

 ingly true of P. gossTjplnits, and I well remember, when I first 

 trapped this beautiful mouse, being astonished to see a creature 

 so wholly different from P. leucojyus, of which I had jn-eviously 

 supposed it merely a subspecies. Since the cranial characters 

 presented by the members of the genus Peromyscus are so slight 

 that it is often difficult to tell apart the skulls of very different 

 species, they are naturally of little help in distinguishing closely 

 related forms. 



Peromyscus gossypinus has a wide range in the lower Austral 

 Zone, extending north along the Atlantic coast to North Carolina, 

 up the Mississippi Valley to Tennessee, and west along the Gulf 

 coast to Louisiana ; but it is not found on the higher land between 

 the most northern, eastern, and western points of its range. * 

 Peromyscus gossypinus inhabits a variety of situations, but my 

 experience with the tjqncal form in Georgia has been that it is 

 rare. About St. JNlarys, Georgia, they lived in the hanmiocks 

 and margins and around the edges of some of the cleared fields, 

 but were not numerous anywhere. I could not find them in 

 the pine woods at all. but their absence there may be due to the 

 annual firing of these woods to make pasture. The Florida form 

 is very abundant in many parts of peninsular Florida. At Oak 

 Lodge, on the east peninsula opposite Micco, I trapped them by 

 the hundred. Their favorite abodes there were the edges of the 

 salt savannah, the piles of brush and rubbish around the cleared 

 fields, and along the edge of the beach in the saw palmetto 

 thickets. In these dense thickets and among the plants and 

 grasses of the upper beach Peromyscus gossypinus pahnarius and 

 the exquisite little Peromyscus niveiventris occurred together in 

 great numbers, feeding largly on the seeds of the sea oats, Utiiola 

 paniculata. 



Peromyscus gossypinus meets or overlaps the ranges of at least 

 four and pro1)ably five other white-footed mice. All along its 

 northern limits it must come in contact with Peromyscus leucopus, 

 and judging from Mr. Rhoads' experience in Tennessee the two 

 species overlap, but keep distinct. P. gossypinus can always be 

 told from P. leucopus by its much larger size, stouter build, bigger 

 hind foot, shorter tail, browner and less fulvous coloration of 

 the upper parts, and the gray (not white) under parts. Major 

 LeConte states in his descrij^tion of P. gossyjyinus that it has 



*Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, and Bertie County, North Carolina. 



