174 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA [No. 55 



Distribution and habitat. These large and very dark-colored wood 

 rats are found along the coast region of Oregon from the lower Co- 

 lumbia River south to Gardiner and old Fort Umpqua, on the 

 Umpqua River below Roseburg, in humid Transition Zone (fig. 32). 

 Generally they are in heavily timbered country, among rocks well 

 overgrown with vegetation. 



General habits. These black wood rats, as commonly called, differ 

 from the western wood rats only as is necessary in adaptation to a 

 more humid and heavily forested area. They are often caught among 

 old logs or under log piles, as well as among the rocks, and their 

 finding and taking up quarters in any camp or cabin in the woods 

 indicate considerable travel under shelter of logs, brush, and dense 

 vegetation. In camps and around buildings generally they have the 

 same reputation for noise and mischief as other wood rats, and 

 their building and carrying habits are also the same. 



At Philomath, Cantwell caught them in traps set for squirrels 

 in the heavy timber. Near Wells, Hollister shot 1 that was driven 

 from its nest in an old deserted house, and caught 2 others in the 

 barn. At Mapleton, Luther Goldman found a deserted cabin in the 

 forest where they had piled up sticks and brush in the corners and 

 between the double walls and had stored a quantity of green alder 

 twigs and leaves as food. At the base of Chmtimini Mountain, the 

 writer caught 1 in a vacant building. McClellan found them in old 

 camps, cabins, stables, and vacant buildings at Florence, Gardiner, 

 and Seton. The scarcity of rocks of the broken-cliff type, which they 

 like, forces them to depend more on other cover and to welcome 

 any shelter more secure than an old log. 



Their food and breeding habits probably do not differ materially 

 from those of their closest relative, N. c. occidentals. 



Economically, they are of little consequence, as those causing 

 annoyance are easily destroyed by guns, traps, or poison. 



NEOTOMA FUSCIPES FUSCIPES (COOPER Ms.) BAIKD 

 DUSKY-FOOTED WOOD RAT 



Neotoma fuscipes (Cooper Ms.) Baird, Mammals North Amer., p. 495, 1857. 

 Neotoma monochroura Rhoads, Amer. Nat. 18: 67, 1894, from Grants Pass, 

 Oreg. 



Type. Collected at Petaluma, Calif., by E. Samuels in 1856. 



General characters. Large for the round-tailed group; tail almost as long 

 as head and body (pi. 31, A), round, tapering, and short haired; ears large 

 and thinly haired; vibrissae about three inches long; fur not so long and soft 

 as in the bushy-tailed species. Color much the same at all seasons, upper 

 parts dark cinnamon brown, darkened by blackish outer hairs; tail blackish 

 above and below; feet mainly dusky with usually whitish toes; lower parts 

 whitish, washed across belly with buffy or pale cinnamon. 



Measurements. Large male: total length, 445 mm; tail, 216; foot, 43; ear 

 (dry), 25, (fresh), 30, from crown, 20. A large male weighed 11 ounces. 



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

 rats extend from San Francisco Bay, Calif., north to the Wil- 

 lamette Valley, Oreg. (fig. 33). The northernmost record is of a 

 specimen taken at Mulino, near Oregon City, by Jewett. In Cali- 

 fornia they reach to the coast, but in Oregon are in the drier interior 

 valleys of the Rogue, Umpqua, and Willamette Rivers, mainly back 



