No. 8 NEW RACCOONS FROM FLORIDA NELSON 9 



Remarks. — The present subspecies occupies the group of keys be- 

 ginning with Virginia and Biscayne Keys on the north side of the 

 entrance to Biscayne Bay and ranges south to the southern point of 

 Lower Matecumbe Key. Key Largo, the median island, is by far the 

 largest of this group and broad mangrove swamps bordering its 

 western side extend out, about the middle of its length, until only a 

 comparatively narrow channel separates them from the similar swamps 

 which extend eastward from the mainland, at the south end of 

 Biscayne Bay. The railroad and motor highway fills, and viaducts 

 extend across these swamps, from Miami tO' the middle of Key Largo 

 on their way down the keys to Key West. 



The comparatively short distance separating the raccoons living on 

 these keys from those of the adjacent mainland, with the size and 

 color of the island animals, made me doubt any strong differentiation 

 when I was collecting them. Fortunately I was able to secure two 

 good males and a female on the adjacent shore of the mainland to 

 determine the question. The skulls of these specimens are typical 

 P. I. eliicus, with characteristic high arched frontal areas from which 

 all the skulls of the series from the various keys of this group may at 

 once be distinguished by their appreciable smaller size and more 

 flattened frontals. 



The largest male taken on Key Largo weighed 12 pounds in the 

 flesh, the same as old males collected and weighed by Dr. E. A. Mearns 

 in Polk County, the home of typical elucns, but the skull of the present 

 form is smaller and flatter. It may be added also that specimens taken 

 on Upper Matecumbe and especially those from Lower Matecumbe 

 Key, the farthest point in the group from the mainland, show gradation 

 toward a smaller animal than those of Virginia Key and Key Largo. 



Speciinens examined. — 15, all from the Key Largo Group, as 

 follows : Virginia Key, 2 ; Key Largo, 3 ; Plantation Key, 2 ; Upper 

 Matecumbe Key, i ; Lower Matecumbe Key, 7. 



PROCYON LOTOR AUSPICATUS subsp. nov. 

 Key Vaca Raccoon 



Type. — From Marathon, Key Vaca, Florida. No. 255080, J" adult, 

 U. S. National Museum, collected by E. W. Nelson, March 28, 1930. 



General characters. — Very small, about the same size as marinus 

 from which it may be distinguished by its grayer upperparts, more 

 brownish yellow pale rings on tail, more depressed frontal area on 

 skull and shorter palatal shelf. Its small size distinguishes it at once 

 from the other forms described here from the Florida Keys. 



