Family LEPORIDJE. 



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The present revision of the American LqmulcB is based upon the 

 material contained in the National Museum at Washington, supplemented by 

 that of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. Tlie speci- 

 mens in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 

 and in the Museum of t!ie Boston Society of Natural History have also 

 been examined. The author has thus had access not only to the types of 

 the species described by Prof. S. F. Baird, in his great work on the Mam- 

 mals of North America, published in 1857, but also to nearly all the material 

 used by him in his excellent elaboration of this family in the above-named 

 work, together with the vast amount of material that has since accumulated 

 at tlie Smithsonian Institution! This includes not only the collections made 

 by tlie different Government expeditions since 1857, but also the large col- 

 lections made since tiiat date, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, in Alaska, the British Possessions, Mexico, and Central America. By 

 far the larger portion of the specimens examined from localities within the 

 United States received from any one source have been the collections made 

 either by Dr. F. V. Hayden personally or under his immediate direction, and 

 especially during the prosecution of the geographical and geological survey 

 of tlie Territories, now in progress, under the auspices of the Department of 

 the Interior. Large collections liave also been received from the other 

 Government surveys of the Territories made under the direction of the 

 Topographical Bureau. The most important collections from the region north 

 of the United States were made by the late Mr. Robert Kennicott and by 

 Mr. William H. Dall, though very large additions have been received from 



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