Alleghany Wood Rat 
5. Newfoundland Muskrat. F. obscurus Bangs. Still smaller and 
darker, with different skull. 
Range. Newfoundland. 
AMERICAN LONG-TAILED MICE AND RATS 
(Subfamily Cricetine) 
Alleghany Wood Rat 
Neotoma pennsylvanica Stone 
Length. 16.40 inches. 
Description. Tail semase as long asthe body, ears prominent. 
Colour plumbeous above, sprinkled with black hairs and with a 
yellowish-brown undertone which is purer and brighter on the 
sides of the body becoming almost pink on the flanks. Feet and 
lower surface of the body pure white. Tail sharply bicoloured, 
dark plumbeous above and white below, closely haired so as to 
obscure the scales entirely. Some summer specimens are duller 
coloured with much less of the buff or pinkish tinge. 
Range. From the Hudson highlands and northwestern New Jersey 
southward along the Alleghanies. 
Rats and mice differ only in size and it does not follow that our 
American wild rats are closely related to the common house rat simply 
because both are big. On the contrary our wood rat finds a closer 
relative in the white-footed mouse of which he is in many ways 
simply a large edition. 
House rats often wander into rather wild localities probably 
following the camps of engineers or lumbermen, and are not 
infrequently taken for wood rats. The latter, however, can always 
be told from his semi-domestic cousin by his hairy tail, softer fur and 
much larger ear, while nis teeth are flat-topped somewhat like those 
of the meadow mice instead of having raised prominences or 
‘‘ tubercles.” 
The Alleghany wood rat inhabits wild rocky ledges along the 
mountains, where he can seek shelter among the loose piles of broken 
rocks or in the crevices and caves usually present in such localities. 
Here he gathers together a mass of sticks, shreds of bark leaves and 
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