MAMMALS OF NORTHERN COLOMBIA—HERSHKOVITZ 127 
The present series is quite typical and represents the first record of 
true semivillosus since the types were sent from Cartagena by the 
former French consul, M. Pavageau, more than a hundred years ago. 
A NOTE ON ECHIMYS ARMATUS (I. GEOFFROY) 
A specimen of Echimys armatus, collected on April 20, 1945, in 
Caparrapi, a municipality in the Magdalena Valley, Cundinamarca, 
and received from the Rockefeller Foundation, is of special interest. 
This individual, an adult male, not only confirms the occurrence of 
the species west of the eastern slopes of the Andes but also indicates 
that the range of E. armatus overlaps that of E. semivillosus in 
Venezuela and Colombia. The correctness of the type locality of 
E. armatus occasius, Gualea, on the western slope of the Ecuadorian 
Andes, has been questioned (Tate, 1935, p. 428). The present 
specimen shows, however, that the distributional pattern of the 
species conforms, at least in part, to that of many other Brazilian or 
Amazonian species of mammals that have rounded the northern 
flanks of the Andes and pushed into the coastal lowlands and moun- 
tain valleys of western Colombia and Ecuador. The genus Echimys 
has not been recorded from Central America. 
The species armatus is readily distinguished from E. semivillosus 
by redder coloration and black spines not punctulated with whitish. 
Ellerman (1940, p. 112) included longirostris, obscura, punctatus, 
flavidus, and carrikeri in the E. armatus group; guianae and castaneus 
were regarded as strictly synonymous with armatus, while occasius 
was listed as a subspecies of it. Tate (1939, p. 180) added longirostris 
to the synonymy of armatus but listed castaneus (with flavidus a 
synonym!) as a valid subspecies. The type specimens of the above- 
named forms, which have been examined by the writer, may be 
classified as follows: 
Echimys armatus armatus (I. Geoffroy), Cayenne 
(guianae Thomas and longirostris Anthony, synonyms) 
Echimys armatus castaneus Allen and Chapman, Trinidad 
Echimys armatus occasius Thomas, Gualea, western Ecuador (type an im- 
mature) 
Echimys semivillosus semivillosus (I. Geoffroy), Cartagena, Colombia 
Echimys semivillosus punctatus Thomas, Caicara, Venezuela 
Echimys semivillosus flavidus Hollister, Margarita Island 
(carrikeri Allen, a.synonym) 
SPECIES OF THE SUBGENUS PROECHIMYS 
The highly variable assortment of individuals composing the species 
of the genus Proechimys has rendered their classification difficult. 
This difficulty has been further aggravated by the host of described 
forms based mainly on individually variable characters or on charac- 
ters that have only a limited and local constancy. The classification 
