Bie NOTES AND COMMENTS [NoVEMBER 
same district, and descriptions of apparently new mammals from 
Oklahoma and Indian territory. Since the author is by no means 
addicted to unnecessary “splitting,” it may be taken for granted that 
such forms as receive new names are certainly entitled to distinction. 
To mention any of the smaller animals by name would be of no 
general interest ; and we may therefore direct attention to his account 
of the Western Wapiti, which has only recently been brought to the 
notice of naturalists, although described long ago by Hamilton Smith 
under the name of C. occidentalis. Mr. Elliot regards it as merely a 
local variety of the Wapiti, and accordingly refers to it as C. canadensis 
occidentalis. 
Failing to find any satisfactory characters in the antlers whereby 
it can be distinguished from the typical Eastern Wapiti, the author 
turns to the coloration of the animal, and writes as follows :—“ In 
nearly all seasons of the year, except winter, the colour of the coat is 
apparently indistinguishable from that of the Rocky Mountain species, 
and I have seen a number of heads, killed in winter, that resembled 
precisely the Eastern animal, being in no wise any darker. But, as a 
rule, I believe in winter the head and neck of the Olympic Wapiti, 
together with the legs, reaching to the groin and rump, are black, 
varying in intensity and in a mixture of brown, among different in- 
dividuals. This peculiar coloration I have never seen in the Eastern 
Wapiti, and when in this pelage the Olympic animal would be always 
readily recognisable. It is to be expected that all the animals inhabit- 
ing a country subjected to such an annual rainfall as in north-west 
Washington, would be very dark in appearance, and this is almost 
universally the case, all colours being intensified; and it is not sur- 
prising that the Wapiti should prove to be no exception to the rule, 
but assumes at certain seasons a partly black pelage. This colouring 
is practically the only character there is by which the Wapiti of the 
Olympics and Rocky Mountains can be separated, and when it is absent 
the animals are indistinguishable from each other.” 
In the geological series of the same journal (i. p. 181) Mr. E.S. 
Riggs describes certain Rodent remains from the Miocene of North 
America, which he refers to the hitherto imperfectly known family 
Mylagaulide. This family was established by the late Professor Cope 
on the evidence of jaws from the Upper Miocene of Nebraska described 
as Mylagaulus. The other forms, respectively from the Deep River and 
John Day beds, are named Mesogaulus and Protogaulus. Although 
showing some dental characters approximating to the Porcupines, these 
Rodents are regarded as undoubted Sciuromorphs, allied to the 
Castoride, although to a great extent forming an isolated type. “The 
one prominent feature,” writes Mr. Riggs, “is the unusual development 
of the premolar, to the exclusion of the posterior-lying teeth. <As- 
sociated with this is the great strength and sharpness of the mandible, 
the prominence and anterior position of the masseteric ridge, and the 
