14 



U. S. P. R. R. EXP. AND SURVEYS ZOOLOGY GENERAL REPORT. 



the nape, covered thinly with hairs on both surfaces, the region about the meatus, however, 

 being bare ; the supplementary lobe of the ear with long hairs springing from the extreme edge ; 

 fur on the body very full and soft, measuring three lines on the back. 



The fore feet are large in proportion, and quite broad, contained about one and two-third 

 times in the hinder ones ; the palms as broad or broader than the soles, being naked and with 

 out fringes ; the tail is as long as the body, (exclusive of the head,) and is covered with short, 

 stiff, appressed hairs, which are of equal size everywhere, and furnish but a very stunted pencil 

 at the end. 



The prevailing color of the upper parts and sides is a dark sooty brown or black, with a hoary 

 intermixture, the hairs being very dark lead color to near the tip, then light grayish and tipped 

 with sooty brown ; the under parts are not conspicuously different from the upper, being of a 

 dark, smoky ash, or plumbeous ; the tail is colored like the back, except on the under surface, 

 which is of a decided and well defined whitish ; the feet are pale brownish. 



The skull is slender, and much attenuated ; the teeth -^ -j- ^ ~f~ 3=3 > * ne upper anterior in 

 cisor with a spur or hook at the base, intermediate in size between the 3d and 4th lateral teeth ; 

 the lower anterior incisor has two tubercles or swellings in the cutting edge near the base, the 

 posterior nearly obsolete, with a notch in front of the anterior one ; the first two lateral upper 

 teeth are of equal size, much larger than the third, and twice the size of the fourth ; the fifth is 

 very small. 



Measurements. 



This species approaches nearest to the Sorex palustris of Richardson; but, judging from the 

 description, differs in the following points : there are five lateral incisors, instead of four ; the 

 tail is longer, and the size every way less. (Body 2, not 3, inches.) There would seem to be 

 more difference in the color of the two surfaces, under and upper, in S. palustris, than in the 

 present species. The geographical distribution is also different, the 8. palustris coming from 

 the Hudson's Bay region, the present one from Oregon, on the Pacific coast. 



From 8. fonteri, Rich., it differs in the considerably longer tail, the disproportion of the 

 third lateral upper tooth, and the darker under parts. 



From Sorex richardsonii of Bachman, it is distinguished by the longer tail and by the nearly 

 uniform tint of the two surfaces. 



