176 NORTH AMEKICAN FAUNA [No. 55 



storing up in their houses rose haws, cascara berries, manzanita ber- 

 ries, laurel fruits, acorns, and such other nuts as are available. Green 

 and dry leaves of ferns, Ceanothus, Umbellularia^ Rhamnus, and 

 other plants are found in the storerooms, while the stomachs of the 

 animals collected for specimens usually show much green vegetation. 



Economic status. Only in rare cases do these builders ever come 

 in conflict with human interests. They generally prefer their own 

 houses to ours, but sometimes explore outbuildings for any choice 

 food or building material, and in certain places may appropriate 

 more than a fair share of nuts, fruit, or vegetables growing near 

 their homes. They are so easily destroyed, however, by traps or 

 poison, or driven away by the destruction of their houses, that they 

 cannot be considered a serious pest. 



Their meat is excellent food, better in flavor and quality than 

 squirrel, more nearly like young rabbit, and their food and general 

 habits are wholly exemplary for a game animal. 



NEOTOMA LEPIDA NEVADENSIS TAYLOR 

 NEVADA WOOD RAT 



Neotoma nevadensis Taylor, Calif. Univ. Pubs. Zool. 5 : 289, 1910. 



Type. Collected in Virgin Valley, Humboldt County, Nev., in 1909 by Annie 

 M. Alexander. 



General characters. Slightly larger and duller colored than typical lepida or 

 desertorum from Death Valley, but still one of the small, silky-furred, round- 

 tailed wood rats of this group; a beautiful animal with large, almost naked, 

 ears, large bright eyes, long trembling vibrissae, and a gentle, intelligent ex- 

 pression of face. Upper parts of adults rich salmon-buff, much obscured over 

 the back by dusky tips of long hairs, sides clearer buffy; top of tail dark 

 buffy gray to black; lower parts, feet, and lower surface of tail white or 

 creamy, the belly sometimes tinged with delicate salmon-buff. Skull relatively 

 wide, heavily ridged with large, quadrate interparietal when compared with 

 that of lepida. 



Measurements. Average of 7 males from Oregon: Total length, 282 mm; 

 tail, 118; foot, 31.5; ear (dry), 25, (fresh) 28, from crown, 18. Weight of not 

 fully adult male, 4 ounces; of old male, probably 6 ounces. 



Three specimens from Diamond and one from Voltage are much darker than 

 those from Watson and Vale, and have wholly black upper surface of tails. 



Distribution and habitat. These little wood rats (pi. 31, B) 

 occupy the arid sagebrush Upper Sonoran valleys of northern 

 Nevada and southeastern Oregon. There are specimens from Vale, 

 Watson, Voltage, Diamond, White Horse Creek, and Warner Lake, 

 and records from near Owyhee and Cow Creek Lakes in Malheur 

 County (fig. 33). They live among rocks or build small houses out in 

 the sagebrush. 



General habits. These little desert wood rats live both among the 

 rocks and in the open. Without rocky cover they generally burrow 

 under some bush, and among its sturdy roots, where comparatively 

 safe from attacks, they build mounds of sticks, brush, and cow chips 

 over the doorways of their underground homes. To save unnecessary 

 labor they sometimes appropriate old burrows of kangaroo rats or 

 ground squirrels, fortifying the approaches. Often a bushel or more 

 of sticks and rubbish are piled over their doorways, but houses with 

 nest and living chambers are rarely found. The building material is 

 mainly for protection from enemies, the hot gun, and possible rains. 



