202 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



with dull buffy; feet and lower half of tail whitish in sharp contrast to the 

 dark colors of body. 



Measurements. Average of 10 adult topotypes: Total length, 150 mm; tail 

 43; foot, 20; ear (dry), 13. 



Distribution and habitat. This large, dark form from the Olym- 

 pic Mountains extends down the Cascades from Mount Rainier to 

 Mount Hood and the Three Sisters Peaks in Oregon (fig. 41). Some 

 of the specimens from the Three Sisters are almost as large and 

 dark as typical olympwus, while others could as well be referred to 

 intermedius. One small female from the mouth of Davis Creek on 

 the Upper Deschutes could be referred to either form, while farther 

 south at Crater Lake they are all clearly referable to intermedium. 



MICROTUS MONTANUS MONTANUS (PEALE) 



PEALE'S MEADOW MOUSE; GIL-WA of the Klamath (C. H. M.) ; PA-MOTA of the 



Piute 



Arvicola montana Peale, U. S. Explor. Exped., v. 8, Mammalogy, p. 44, 1848. 



Type. Collected on headwaters of Sacramento River near Mount Shasta 



Calif., by Titian R. Peale, October 4, 1841. 

 General characters. Size medium (pi. 34), about as in Miorotus pennsyl- 



vanicus; tail about twice as long as hind foot, slightly tapering; hip glands 



conspicuous in adult males; 

 upper incisors projecting 

 more than in most species; 

 color of upper parts sooty 

 gray, smoky gray, or dusky, 

 sometimes blackish ; lower 

 parts lightly washed with 

 whitish ; feet plumbeous ; tail 

 indistinctly bicolor, blackish 

 above, gray below. 



Measurements. Average of 

 a series of topotypes: Total 

 length, 175 mm ; tail, 52 ; foot, 

 21.5; ear (dry), 12. Weight 

 of adult, but not large, female, 

 from Malheur Lake, 48 g. Her 

 measurements in the flesh 

 were 164; 39; 20; 14 mm. 





FIGURE 42. Range of Peale's meadow mouse, Ml 

 crotus montanus montanus, in Oregon. 



Distribution and habi- 

 tat. This is a wide- 

 ranging species in the Great Basin area and in northeastern Califor- 

 nia. In Oregon it occupies almost every marsh, slough, and stream 

 valley east of the Cascades and south of the Blue Mountains, in 

 both Transition and Upper Sonoran Zones. The mice are most 

 abundant in and around the large tule marshes, so extensive in some 

 of the otherwise arid valleys (fig. 42). 



General habits. These little, long-furred " woolly bears " of the 

 meadows are often called "moles" or "meadow moles" by the 

 ranchers in the desert country where no real moles occur. They ap- 

 pear to be black as they run through the grass or stubble in their 

 little roadways over the surface of the ground and keep in the 

 shadows of protecting grass and dense vegetation. They are rarely 

 seen except after the meadows are mowed and are most often sighted 

 when the hay is being hauled or sledded to the stacks with buck 

 rakes. On the big hay meadows around Malheur Lake the writer 



