New Species of Aphdotitia. 313 



the past, and which lias no near affinities with any existing 

 group, inhabits a narrow strip of country on the north-west coast 

 of the United States. It is not known from the region east of 

 the Cascade Range,* and all the specimens thus far obtained have 

 come either from Oregon or Washington, or from the Chiluk- 

 weyuk River near its junction with the Frazer, just across our 

 border in British Columbia. 



Rumors have from time to time appeared to the effect that a 

 Sewellel or Show'tl lived in the mountains of California, but the 

 only animal purporting to have been taken within the limits of 

 that State which has actually fallen under the eye of a natural- 

 ist, so far ns I have been able to ascertain, is one which reached 

 the Museum of the University of Berlin twenty-two years ago. 

 This specimen will be discussed at length later in the present 

 paper. 



In June, 1885, Mr. C. A. Allen, who was collecting mammals 

 for me in California, wrote as follows : "There has just been 

 discovered, about twenty-five miles from here, an animal which 

 I have for years been trying to secure. It is what the mountain 

 people in the Sierras call a ' Mountain Beaver.' A man has 

 caught six alive in his garden, and all were thrown away except 

 one, which was sent to the Academy of Sciences in San Fran- 

 cisco. I am wild to see one. I offered a miner lo.OD for one 

 when in the Sierras two years ago, but he failed to get it. - - - 

 I have seen their holes. They inhabit springy side-hills where 

 they burrow and make their homes. They are very shy animals, 

 and are probably nocturnal, — at least I judge so from not having 

 been able to see them in my searches after them. I am told that 

 they have no tail, or at most a slight apology for one." This 

 description, meagre and aggravating as it was, satisfied me that 



* I am aware that Newberry, iu the XII Vol. of the Pacific Railroad Re- 

 ports, states that he saw an "absolutely black" specimen which was "ob- 

 tained near the base of the Rocky Mountains " (No. 2, Reports upon the 

 Zoology of the Route. By J. S. Newberry, M. D., Chapter I. Report 

 upon the Mammals, 1859, p. 58). But since the same sentence contains an 

 obvious mistake, and since no other naturalist has recorded the species from 

 the region between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, it seems 

 safe to assume that Newberry's record was based on faulty information. 



