72 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Sub"Family CRICETIN^. 



American Long-Taii.ed Mice and Rats. 

 The New Jersey species fall into three genera. 



a. Size large, rat-like ; molars flat on top, divided into triangles. 



NEOTOMA (Wood Rats) 



aa. Size medium, rat-like ; molars tuberculate ; strongly resembling a young 



Norway Rat. oryzomys (Ricefield Mouse) 



aaa. Size small, mouse-like. pEromyscus (Deer Mice) 



Genus Neotoma Say and Ord. 



Wood Rats. 

 Neotoma pennsylvanica Stone. 



Alleghany Wood Rat. 



Peate 26, Fig. 2. 



Length 16.40 inches. Tail nearlyas long as the body, ears prom- 

 inent. Color plumbeous gray above, sprinkled with black hairs 

 and with a yellowish-brown under-tone, becoming brighter and 

 almost pink on the flanks. Feet gray above, white below, closely 

 haired so as to obscure the scales. 



While wood rats had once or twice been reported from the 

 Middle States, it was supposed that they had been brought from 

 the south, where they abound, and had escaped. In 1892, how- 

 ever, Mr. J. G. Dillen procured some specimens from Cumberland 

 County, Pennsylvania, which he submitted to me for examina- 

 tion, and I at once saw that they were of a different species from 

 the southern wood rat (Neotoma Horidana). Since then the 

 species has been detected in rocky locations on the hills and moun- 

 tains from the Hudson Highlands southward through the Alle- 

 ghanies. In New Jersey the wood rats have been found only on 

 Greenwood Mountain, near the lake of that name, in Passaic 

 County, where Mr. Rhoads trapped several specimens in 1896 

 (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sciences Phila., 1897, p. 28). It probably oc- 

 curs elsewhere in the mountains. 



