MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 95 



reasonable to extend their habitat northward and eastward in N. J., in con- 

 formity to the distribution of Chamcecyparis swamps, through eastern Mon- 

 mouth and Middlesex to Hudson Co. At what point they may be said to 

 intergrade with gapperi we have not the material to show, but the Pine Bar- 

 ren regions south of Monmouth Co. are probably their most natural limit. 



Habits, etc. What has already been written regarding Capper's wood vole 

 will apply largely to the habits of this race. The cedar swamp vole, however, 

 living as it does in a faunal region where the hot climate and vegetation of 

 the uplands immediately adjoining the swamps it frequents is injurious to so 

 boreal an animal, keeps very close to the damp, cool interior and boggy mar- 

 gins of the swamp where the sphagnum is always dense and moist or the 

 cedar hummocks crowd closely together. Such an environment, permitting 

 no incursions into the sunnier uplands and requiring close contact with the 

 subterranean springs which make life bearable in summer in such austral sur- 

 roundings, has probably been the cause of the darker coloration of this vole, 

 as compared with Capper's vole of the north woods. From remarks made in 

 the original descriptions of it, there seems to be an idea that the cedar swamp 

 race is partial to cranberry bogs. This is not the case, they rarely venturing 

 into the edges of the open bogs farther than the line of bushes which fringes 

 the borders of the cedar swamp. In the open bogs they are replaced by the 

 meadow mouse, Microtus pennsylvanicus. 



Description of species : Capper's wood vole is bright chestnut on the back, 

 sprinkled lightly with blackish hairs ; sides grayish-buffy ochraceous ; belly 

 gray, washed with pale buff, the lateral line separating the upper and lower 

 colors not defined, the grayish-buff reaching far up the sides, restricting the 

 chestnut dorsal area to a sort of broad stripe; feet above, grayish-white. 

 Ears showing above body fur. The New Jersey wood vole is dark chestnut 

 above, thickly mingled with blackish hairs over back, head and sides, under- 

 parts as in gapperi, hind feet dusky gray, upper body colors reaching down 

 sides and definitely separated along the ground line from whitish of under 

 parts. 



G. S. Miller, Jr., in his key to Land Mammals of N. Amer., 1900, p. in, 

 separates these two forms as distinct species on a basis of the cranial charac- 

 ters and of the size of the ears and sharp definition between upper and lower 

 body-colors. I have taken a large series of adult Evotomys from, i, southern 

 N. J., 2, northern N. J., 3, North Mountain, Pa., 4, Quebec, and 6, southern 

 Pa. and W. Va., and compared them with the following results : i, there is 

 practically no difference in average measurements in the four series, the size 

 and character of ear not being diagnostic ; 2, the color differences are not 

 sufficient of themselves to admit of more than racial separation ; 3, the cranial 

 characters (" skull and teeth much heavier than in E. gapperi, in this respect 

 resembling E. carolinensis ") appear to show constant difference in respect 



