206 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 56 



Distribution cmd habitat. Long known in the lower Willamette 

 Valley in the open country where there were originally grassy 

 prairies but now are fields and the best of the farming land, and 

 recently found in the Deschutes Valley, east of the Cascades (fig. 43). 

 There are specimens from McCoy, Albany, Sheridan, Beaverton, 

 Portland, Hillsboro, Banks, Gresham, Corvallis, and Eugene, and on 

 the east side of the Cascades from Warm Springs in the Deschutes 

 Valley and in Washington in the Yakima and Wenatchee Valleys. 



General habits. These little gray-tailed mice are so scarce and 

 local that few specimens have been taken and little is known of their 

 habits, other than that they are found in fields, pastures, or grassy 

 situations, where they make runways under the old grass and such 

 cover as they can find. 



MICROTUS TOWNSENDII (BACHMAN) 

 TOWN SEND' s MEADOW MOUSE 



Arvicola townsen&ii Bachman, Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. Jour. 8 : 60, 1839. 



Type locality. Lower Columbia River, near mouth of Willamette, on or 



near Wapato (or Sauvie) Island. 

 General characters. Large; ears conspicuous above thin harsh fur; hip 



glands conspicuous in adult males; skull compared with that of califomieus 



longer and less arched with 

 posteriorly constricted inci- 

 sive foramen. Upper parts 

 dark brown ; lower parts gray- 

 ish brown or smoky over 

 plumbeous ; feet plumbeous or 

 blackish; tail blackish, but 

 little lighter below than 

 above. 



Measurements. Of typical 

 adult male : Total length, 225 

 mm; tail, 66; foot, 26; ear 

 (dry), 15. 



Distribution and habi- 

 tat. These mice are 

 found in the coast area of 

 Washington, Oregon, 

 northwestern California, 

 and southwestern British 

 Columbia (fig. 44). In 

 Oregon they occupy the Willamette, Umpqua, and Eogue Kiver Val- 

 leys, but keep entirely west of the Cascade Kange. They are marsh 

 and meadow dwellers of the low country, preferring wet ground 

 and dense cover of vegetation such as rank grass and tules. 



General habits. These are typical meadow mice with habits very 

 much like the eastern Microtus pennsylvanicus. They live under 

 cover of growing or dead and fallen vegetation, where their numer- 

 ous little roadways may be found leading from one burrow to 

 another, or away to their feeding grounds, and often through shallow 

 water or to the edges of ditches or streams where the mice swim 

 from bank to bank. Their nests are balls of dry grass placed on the 

 surface of the ground under cover of protecting plants or in nest 

 chambers in the underground tunnels. 



FIGURE 44. Range of Townsend's meadow mouse, 

 Microtus townsendii, in Oregon. Type locality 

 circled. 



