DESCRIPTION OF A NEW GENUS AND SPECIES 

 OF THE SORECID.^. 



ATOPHYRAX BENDIRII Mcniam. 



Bciidires Shrciv. 



By CLINTON MART MERRIAM, M. D. 



In a collection of mammals from Klamath Basin, Oregon, kindly 

 presented to me by Captain Chas. E. Bendire, 1st Cavalry, U. S. A., 

 is a Shrew of more than ordinary interest. Concerning its history 

 Captain Bendire writes me : " It was captured in one of my camps 

 while I was constructing a telegraph line from Fort Klamath, 

 Oregon, to Fort Bidwell, California. The exact locality was about 

 a mile from Williamson's River, and some eighteen miles south- 

 east of P^ort Klamath. The last of July or first of August comes 

 within a day or two of the date. I had just returned from fishing 

 when one of my men brought me the specimen, stating that it had 

 been caught an hour before by one of the dogs. I was camped 

 near a little spring on the edge of a wet meadow, along and 

 amongst a grove of pine timber." 



It is one of the largest of the Shrews, weighing about four times 

 as much as Sorcx Cooperi, and proves to be the type of a new genus. 

 It presents, in some respects, a curious combination of the charac- 

 ters of the Shrews hitherto described, together with certain 

 peculiarities of its own which indicate a modification more extreme 

 even than that met with in Ncosorcx. I take pleasure in bestow- 

 ing upon this interesting animal the name of the distinguished 

 naturalist by whom it was secured — a name that must ever be 

 associated with the natural history, not of Oregon alone, but of 

 a number of our western States and Territories. 



In order to arrive at a clear conception of the peculiarities and 

 i5 



