Apeil 3, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



525 



Iowa Academy of Science, he published plates 

 III. aud IV., without acknowledgments, which 

 were first published by Winslow in the text of 

 the Iron Mountain sheet as plates III. aud II. 

 For his introduction to my report from the 

 same place he borrowed plates I. and III., using 

 them as plates II., VIII. and IX., respectively, 

 again without acknowledgments. And yet on 

 November 14 he wrote me : ■"I have only the 

 simple statement to make that no one holds in 

 higher reverence the giving of all due credit to 

 whom it belongs and no one has tried harder 

 than I to give it on all and every occasion." 

 Erasmus Haworth. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 A Revieiv of the Weasels of Eastern North Amer- 

 ica. By OuTRAM Bangs, Proc. Biol. Soc. of 

 AVashington, X., pp. 1-24, pis. I.-III., Feb. 

 25, 1896. 



In clearing up the status of the Weasels of 

 eastern North America, Mr. Bangs has done a 

 piece of work that will be welcomed by all 

 mammalogists. He has had access to practi- 

 cally all the material thus far accumulated by 

 American natui'alists on the species treated; his 

 results leave little to be desired. 



All three of the species named by Bonaparte 

 in 1838 — richardsoni, cicognani and longicauda — 

 are found to be valid, and their geographic 

 ranges are for the first time defined. The weasel 

 which heretofore has been persistently con- 

 founded with the European Putorius erminea is 

 found to be a very distinct species for which 

 the name P. noveboracensis of Dekay and 

 Emmons becomes available. This animal is the 

 common large weasel of the Eastern States, 

 ■where it ranges from the mountains of North 

 Carolina northward to northern New York aud 

 central Maine. It is not known from any point 

 w^est of Illinois. 



The small weasel of the Northern States, 

 which it has been customary to call P. vulgaris. 

 is the P. cicognani of Bonaparte, as recognized 

 by Baird and Mearns, but overlooked by most 

 mammalogists. P. cicognani is a north'ern 

 a,nimal ranging from New York and New 

 England northward, and extending westward 

 all the way to Alaska. Mr. Bangs believes 



that it intergrades, in the far North, with the 

 arctic P. richardsoni, the type of which came 

 from Great Bear Lake. P. richardsoni ranges 

 from Hudson Bay to the coast of Alaska. 



The weasel of the northern plains, P. longi- 

 cauda Bonaparte, becomes considerably darker 

 along the edge of the forest belt in Minnesota, 

 and the dark form is named as a subspecies, 

 spadix. ' 



But the most interesting novelty is a tiny 

 species from the plains of the Saskatchewan, 

 which Mr. Bangs names P. rixosus. It is not 

 only the smallest of the weasels, but it is be- 

 lieved to be the smallest known Carnivor- 

 ous mammal. It has a very short tail, which 

 lacks the black tip of all other species, and 

 in winter the^ little animal turns white all 

 over. It ranges from Hudson Bay to the coast 

 ,4)f Alaska and is exceedingly rare in collections. 



The rarest weasel of all is the Florida species, 

 P. peninsulee, recently described by S. N. 

 Rhoads. Only half a dozen specimens, mostly 

 poor, have as yet found their way into collec- 

 tions. 



Mr. Bangs' paper is an excellent example of 

 the kind of work American mammalogists have 

 been doing for the past few years. It is based 

 on a sufficient number of specimens to admit of 

 final conclusions, and the specimens have been 

 studied so thoroughly that no other conclusions 

 are likely to be suggested in future. 



The paper is illustrated by 3 excellent plates 

 of skulls, all drawn by Dr. James C. McCon- 

 nell. C. H. M. 



Report on Field-work in Chenango County [New 

 YorK]. By J. M. Clarke. (In Thirteenth 

 An. Kept. State Geologist [N. Y.] for the 

 year 1898, Vol. I., Geology. Pp. 529-557, 

 1 plate, 10 figures.) 



Volume I. of the last annual report of the 

 State Geologist of New York forms a book of 

 nearly 600 pages which is devoted to a descrip- 

 tion of the geology of certain portions of the 

 state and is profusely illustrated with maps, 

 sections, figures and plates. The greater num- 

 ber of separate papers composing the report are 

 not only filled with interesting facts, but also 

 increase our knowledge of the geology of the 

 State to a considerable extent. 



