220 MONOGRAPHS OF NORTH AMERICAN RODENTIA. 
Diaenosis.— A rvicola staturd inter minimos, (long. trunct 8—4-poll.), forma 
quasi-talpoidea sed rostro obtuso, caudd brevissima (subpollicarc), auriculis parvis 
rotundatis planis subpilosis vellere occultis, pedibus exiguis, 5-tuberculatis, mant- 
bus latis dimidium pedum excedentibus, unguibus mapjusculis ; vellere curto, denso, 
sericeo, supra castaneo aut brunneo, subtus canescente-plumbeo. 
Little Meadow Mouse, looking something like a mole, with close silky 
fur brown above and hoary gray below; tail shorter than the head; small 
hind feet, with only five tubercles; comparatively large fore feet, more 
than half as long as the hinder, and with longer claws; and small, flat, round, 
scant-haired ears concealed in the fur. 
Hasirat.—United States, chiefly east of the Mississippi, and rather 
southerly; north to Massachusetts and Missouri. Kansas (Goss). Fort 
Cobb (Palmer). Oregon (U. S. Expl. Exped., Peale). 
Some of the expressions in the foregoing diagnosis rather belong to the 
subgenus Pitymys than to this particular species. The dentition will be 
found fully elucidated under head of Pitymys; here we will continue our 
account of P. pinetorum with a notice of the skull, append a table of meas- 
urements, and then recur to external features. Nos. 45", 2, and 433’, d, both 
from Tarborough, N. C., are more selected for description as being the most 
perfect, but the other twelve specimens are likewise taken into account. 
Skudl—lt gives an impression of being broader and more massive than 
that of riparius; and figures do bear out the suggestion, although in truth 
the difference in width or height, as compared with length, is slight; the 
length relative to the width is as 92: 57, or as 1.00: 0.62, on an average, 
whereas the same proportion in riparius is 1.00 : 0.59 only. The absolute size 
of the skull is as much less as was to have been expected from the animal's 
smaller stature, and the difference appears to be positively distinctive; for we 
have never seen an (adult) skull of riparius that fell below one inch, and never 
one of pinetorum that touched this figure. Still we suspect that some Mas- 
sachusetts skulls, for example, might reach it. Our specimens range from 
0.90 to 0.97 in length, and the zygomatic width is just about $ as much. 
The average width of pinetorum is just at par with the minimum width of 
riparius. ‘There is a noticeable difference in the interorbital width, however; 
the constriction here being no greater absolutely than that of riparius, and 
consequently being relatively less. The ante-zygomatic or rostral part of the 
skull is perhaps broader for its length, as well as absolutely shorter. In the 
