198 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. XL 



whitish, the hairs plumbeous gray at base and tipped with white; 



feet white; tail rather thinly haired, dark above, pale or whitish 



below. 

 Measurements — Total length, about 7.25 in. (184 mm.); tail 



vertebrae, 3.20 in. (79 to 83 mm.); hind foot, .96 in. (24 mm.). 



The Western Cotton Mouse is not uncommon in southern Illinois. 

 The Museum collection contains specimens from Ozark, Golconda, and 

 Olive Branch, but thus far it has only been taken in the extreme south- 

 em portion of the state. Howell states that it is common in swamps 

 and wooded bluffs of the Lower Austral Zone and that specimens were 

 collected at Olive Branch, Wolf Lake and Golconda, Illinois, and also 

 in Missouri. (/. c, p. 26.) Rhoads, who observed this Mouse in 

 Tennessee, writes, ''So far as I have made its acquaintance in Tennes- 

 see, the Cane Mouse is solely a denizen of the 'bottom lands' of the 

 Mississippi. At Samburg it confined its wanderings very closely to 

 the immediate vicinity of Reelfoot Lake, and was abundant in the 

 dense forest jungle that bordered its margin, seeming to prefer the 

 lowest and wettest parts of the overflowed lands." (/. c, p. 189.) 



Specimens examined from Illinois : 

 Illinois — Ozark, Johnson Co., 7; Golconda, Pope Co., 2; Olive Branch, 



Alexander Co., 1 = 10. 



Subgenus OCHROTOMYS Osgood. 



"Ears bright ochraceous, same color as body; posterior palatine 

 foramina nearer to interpterygoid fossa than to anterior palatine 

 foramina; dentine spaces of molars mostly closed" (Osgood). 



Peromyscus nuttalli aureolus (Aud. & Bach.). 

 Southern Golden Mouse. 



Mus (Calomys) aureolus Aud. & Bach., Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., I, 1841, p. 98. 



Hesperomys nuttalli Kennicott, Agr. Rept. for 1857, U. S. Patent Office Rept., 

 1858, p. 87 (southern Illinois). 



Peromyscus nuttalli aureolus Osgood, N. Amer. Fauna, No. 28, 1909, p. 225 (Mis- 

 souri, Arkansas, etc.). Wood, Bull. 111. State Lab. Nat. Hist., VIII, 1910, p. 

 549 (Illinois). 



Type locality — Oak forests of South Carolina. 



Distribution — Southeastern United States from northern Florida 

 to North Carolina, west through the more southern portions of 

 Georgia and Alabama, the whole of Mississippi, western Tennessee 

 and western Kentucky, southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri 

 and the greater portion of Arkansas and Louisiana to eastern Texas 

 and Oklahoma. 



