94 MAMMALS OK PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



damp hemlock forests. As we approach the lower transition confines of its 

 range, this vole is much more restricted in its wanderings, rarely leaving the 

 sphagnum-covered bogs and stream banks which are most densely shaded by 

 evergreens. In such places I have found their burrows forming such a per- 

 fect network through the moss that scarce a foot of sphagnum could be found 

 without one or more of them, rarely coming to the surface but mostly running 

 along at or below the level of the hidden springs which feed the swamp. 



This mouse rarely enters dwellings of any sort and is one of the most inof- 

 fensive of its genus, economically speaking. It forms a large part of the prey 

 of some rapacious animals, especially the Bonaparte's Weasel, Putorius cicog- 

 nani, seeming to be more unsuspicious than other forest-dwelling mice and 

 less agile in escaping attack. It often runs about and searches food in open 

 daylight, climbing up the stems of Euonymus to cut off a supply of leaves or 

 peering out at a human intruder from the mouth of its burrow, or making a 

 dash across the open hotly pursued by a voracious, short-tailed shrew or 

 quarrelsome deer mouse. 



Description of species, etc. See under next species. 



Specimens examined. Pa. : Sullivan Co., 26; Clinton Co., 10 ; Westmore- 

 land Co., 3 ; Monroe Co., 6 ; Somerset Co., 23 ; Potter Co. and McKean Co., 

 several ; Susquehanna Co., 2. N. J. : Sussex Co., 2 localities, 19. 



New Jersey Wood Vole, or Red-back Mouse. Evotomys gapperi 

 rhoadsi Stone. 



1893. Evotomys gapperi rhoadsi Stone, American Naturalist, vol. 27, p. 55. 



Type locality. May's Landing, Atlantic County, N. J. 



Fauna! distribution. Transition islands of the upper austral zone in New 

 Jersey. Probably also to be found in similar places in Maryland and Dela- 

 ware. 



Distribution in Pa. and N.J. Not found in Pa. So far as I have explored 

 the typical white cedar swamps of New Jersey and done persistent trapping 

 therein, I have found this vole. This work covers parts of Atlantic, Burling, 

 ton, Camden, Cape May and Cumberland Cos. The most northerly point of 

 finding it was in the edge of a bog near Medford, in Burlington Co., the most 

 westerly and southerly, in swamps 3 miles west of Port Norris, Cumberland 

 Co. There are a few small isolated swamps of white cedar ( Chamcecyparis) 

 near the Delaware river, in Camden and Gloucester Cos., where I have briefly 

 trapped for them without success but have no doubt, from the character of 

 the regions and of the runways in these swarnps, that Evotomys was there in 

 small numbers. The taking of them near Medford is the first instance of any 

 being found in the Delaware river drainage, north of Delaware Bay. From 

 what we now know of the peculiar haunts and distribution of this race, it is 



