82 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



at Tuckerton. Failure at these places may have been due to the fact that 

 the more inaccessible tide marshes where Warrington found his specimens, 

 were not visited. It seems best for the present to limit its N. J. range to the 

 tidewater lands of Delaware Bay. It is found near Greenwich, Bay Side and. 

 Newtown. 



Records in N. J. — Cumberland Co. — Two specimens were captured by 

 Henry W. Warrington, Nov. 21, 1898, and presented by him to the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He "states that the specimens were 

 procured on the marshes bordering Delaware Bay about midway between 

 Port Norris and Salem, and that they were inhabitmg old muskrat houses, in 

 which they had made their nests." — Stone, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences, Phila., 

 1898, pp. 480, 481. Specimens have been secured in January the present 

 winter and one sent to me from near Greenwich. In March, 1902, I caught 

 several in muskrat houses on the brackish marshes of Cohansey creek, about 

 2 miles from the bay. I was informed that they were found at Bay Side in 

 similar places and up Nantuxent creek as far as Newtown. No doubt the 

 tide marshes of the entire county are tenanted by them. — Rhoads. 



Salem Co. — The following is extracted from Dr. Harlan's original descrip- 

 tion of this rat : "Habitat — Found in the fresh water swamps of New Jersey 

 and South Carolina. The present specimen was taken near 'Fast Land' in 

 the vicinity of Salem. A similar specimen was sent to me by Dr. Bachman, 

 of Charleston, S. C. — Cab. of A. N. S., Phila." — Harlan, Amer. Journal Sci. 

 and Arts, vol. 31, 1837, p. 386. 



In my field efforts to secure topotypes of this animal I have been unsuc- 

 cessful, though informed by several muskrat trappers that they are found in 

 the marshes of Salem creek. No doubt this is true, though the animal is by 

 them confused with the young Norway rats found in the dikes, as evidenced 

 by a specimen of the latter sent me for an Oryzotnys. A letter from Josiah 

 Wistar, an old resident of Salem, in answer to inquiry as to the meaning of 

 "Fast Land," states "The term 'Fast Land' used by Dr. Harlan in 1836 was 

 probably intended to distinguish what we here call upland as tillable land 

 from marsh, or the land that has been reclaimed from the tides; so that no 

 particular or exact locality was intended to be specified." This explanation, 

 in view of the absence of this species in this region from upland, as con- 

 clusively proved by myself and others, leaves us as much in the dark as ever. 



Historical references. — " The type of the genus Oryzomys was discovered 

 by Bachman in 181 6 in the marshes of South Carolina. Twenty years later 

 he sent a specimen to Drs. Pickering and Harlan of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences at Philadelphia. Bachman [provisionally] named this new rodent 

 Arvicola oryzivora and requested that a comparison be made between his 

 specimen and the Arvicola riparia of Ord, with which he was not familiar. 

 The comparison was made by Dr. Harlan, who incidentally found a specimea 



