THE MAMMALS OF NEW JERSEY. 73 
This rat lives in caves, crevices, and rock piles. ‘They feed on 
various nuts and other vegetable matter and gnaw at bones that 
remain from the feasts of such carnivorous animals as may share 
their rocky retreats. ‘They sometimes build large bulky nests, 
formed by heaping up leaves, grass.and various vegetable fibres. 
This rat can always be told from the domestic or Norway rat 
by the hairiness of the tail, softer fur and much larger ears, while 
the molar teeth are flat-topped, not raised into “tubercles.” The 
wood rat, too, lacks the disagreeable odor of the other species, 
and is altogether a cleaner, brighter-colored animal. 
Neotoma magister Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1897, 
p. 28.—Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1894, p. 219. 
Neotoma pennsylvanica Rhoads, Mam. Pa. and N. J., 1903, 
p. 85. 
Genus Oryzomys Baird. 
Ricefield Mice. 
Oryzomys palustris (Harlan). 
Ricefield Mouse. 
PLATE 27. 
Length 9.40 inches. In general appearance very much like a 
young Norway rat. Dull brown, thickly mixed with black hairs. | 
Tail obscurely bicolored, scantily haired. Best distinguished 
from the young Norway rat by the larger tail, browner color, and 
the white fringe of hairs on the lower part of the ear and glossy 
brown hairs inside. It also has orange front teeth which are 
white in the young rat and the tubercles on the molar teeth form 
two rows instead of three. 
This mouse, common through the south, was supposed to have 
originally come from New Jersey, Dr. Harlan stating that his 
type specimen came from Salem. All efforts on the part of Mr. 
Rhoads, myself and others, however, failed to rediscover it and 
the impression was gaining ground that there was some error re- 
garding the locality of Dr. Harlan’s specimen, when Mr. Henry 
