1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



171 



NEOTOMA CINEREA OCCIDENTALIS ( COOPER Ms.) BAIBD 



WESTERN BUSHY-TAILED WOOD RAT ; CHO-CHO of the Klamath ; TE-KA-WA of the 



Piute (C. H. M.) 



Neotoma occidentalis (Cooper Ms.) Baird, Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. Proc. 7: 335, 

 1855. 



Type. Collected at Shoalwater Bay, Wash., by J. G. Cooper in 1854. 



General characters. Large for a wood rat; tail bushy, wide, and almost 

 squirrel-like; ears large and nearly naked; whiskers (vibrissae), about 4 inches 

 long ; fur long and soft ; eyes rather large and prominent, appearing shiny black 

 (pi. 30, A, C). Color of upper parts dark cinnamon brown more or less clouded 

 with dusky ; feet, lower surface of tail, and lower parts white or creamy with 

 sometimes a touch of bright cinnamon on throat. Immature more plumbeous. 

 Winter fur darker, summer fur showing more of cinnamon. 



Measurements. Total length of large male, 440 mm; tail, 200; foot, 47; ear 

 (dry), 30, (fresh) 32, from crown, 20. Weight of not very large male, 12 ounces. 



Distribution and habitat. These large, dark bushy-tailed wood 

 rats cover most of the region from southern British Columbia to 

 northern California and 

 Nevada, most of Idaho, 

 and all of Washington 

 and Oregon, except a 

 narrow coast strip where 

 they run into the still 

 darker N. c. fusca (fig. 

 32). In their caves and 

 sheltered retreats among 

 the rocks (pi. 30, B) they 

 have little regard for 

 life zone lines, and while 

 largely in Transition, 

 they occur freely in up- 

 per Sonoran and Cana- 

 dian Zones. They live 

 mainly in cliffs or masses 

 of broken rocks, but at 

 times must wander considerably, as they suddenly appear in camps, 

 barns, or houses in either forests or in open country at a distance 

 from rocks. They are never numerous except very locally, where 

 unusual protection is afforded. 



General habits. Wood rats are mainly nocturnal, sleeping most 

 of the day and working very actively at night. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, they move about in the daytime, and they seem to see well in 

 either light or dark. 



In Oregon their favorite haunts are the rimrock cliffs or broken 

 lava beds and caves, where they revel in safe retreats and comfort- 

 able winter or cool summer quarters. They are noted builders and 

 endeavor to fortify their rocky caverns by piling them full of rub- 

 bish, sticks, chips, stones, bones, thorny branches, dried manure, ref- 

 use food material, and anything they can find to carry and fill up 

 the vacant spaces and hide or protect their nests and young. Some- 

 times a house is built over a hollow log or around the base of a 

 hallow tree, or even in the branches of a tree, but houses are rarely 

 built at a distance from the rocks, as they are by many other species 

 of wood rats. 



FIGURE 32. Range of the two bushy-tailed wood 

 rats in Oregon : 1, Neotoma cinerea fusca; 2, N. 

 c. oocidentalis. Type locality circled. 



