JUNE, 1806.] SYNOPSIS OF THE WEASELS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



17 



Color. Summer pelage: Upper parts, including fore and hind feet 

 and anal region, and often encroaching irregularly on belly, rich dark 

 chocolate brown, sometimes suggesting seal brown ; under parts (usually 

 including upper lip) white, more or less washed with yellowish; no 

 yellow on under side of tail or on hind feet, the color of under parts 

 stopping short of ankle. Winter pelage: In southern part of range 

 similar to summer pelage, but upper parts paler, nearly drab brown. 

 Northern specimens white all over except terminal third of tail, which 



is jet black; throat, belly, posterior 

 half of back and tail always suffused 

 with yellowish. 



Cranial characters. Skull of male 

 large, heavy, and elongate; sagittal 

 ridge present in adults; postorbital 

 processes and constriction mod- 

 erately developed; zygomata not 

 bowed outward; audital bullw rather 

 narrowly oval, usually rounded an- 

 teriorly as well as posteriorly. Skull of female very small, light, and 

 narrow, with brain case elongate and subcylindric, much as in cicognani; 

 audital bull* small, narrow, and not rising abruptly anteriorly from 

 inflated squamosals, which latter are elongated and strongly inflated as 

 in cicognani. Skulls of males may be distinguished from those of male 

 longicanda by shorter postorbital processes, less marked postorbital 

 constriction, less triangular brain case, lower sagittal ridge, very much 

 narrower zygomata, which are not bowed outward, narrower palate, and 

 narrower audital bulhe, which are more rounded anteriorly. The resem- 

 blance to P. washingtoni is very much closer, bufr male skulls of novebo- 



1?IG. 4. Putorius novebiiracensi,? c 

 dacks, New Tork. 



FIGS. 5 aiid 0. I'uturiut, north 



Adiroadacks, Xew York. 



racensix may be distinguished by larger size and much larger audital 

 bullfe. The female skull, owing to the inflation of its squamosals 

 inferiorly, needs no comparison with either washingtoni or longicauda, 

 but is with difficulty separated from cicognani in regions where the two 

 species overlap. The postorbital processes are longer and the car- 

 nassial and sector ial teeth larger in the females of novebwacensis than 

 in cicognani from the same localities. 



Remarks. Putorius noveboracensis may usually be distinguished from 

 P. cicognani by larger size and also by the longer and more bushy tail, 

 1G932 No. 11 2 



