141 



Specific Characters. — As this is the only representative of its genus, and 

 as the above enumeration, of generic characters is unusually full and 

 minute, it is only necessary to mention a few other characters which are 

 taken from Dr. Coues's Monograph above cited, 



The length, from nose to end of tail vertebrse, is from 7J to 10^ inches, 

 averaging about 8 inches. The body and tail are usually about equal. 



The color is mixed yellowish and grayish'brown, and black; darker 

 along the back, shading on the rump and sides into the whitish of the 

 under parts. The hands and feet are densely or scantily covered with 

 satiny, whitish, appressed hairs. The palms and soles are flesh-colored 

 or blackish. The palms are 5, the soles 6-tuberculate. The third finger 

 is longest, the fourth a little shorter, and the second and fifth diminish 

 rapidly. The second, third, and fourth toss are very long and nearly 

 equal; the fifth reaches nearly to the middle of the fourth, the first 

 scarcely beyond the base of the second. The claws are short, thick, little 

 curved, not very sharp. The size of the foot is in striking contrast with 

 the shortness of the leg. 



The habitat of this species is the south Atlantic and Gulf States, es- 

 pecially in maratime portions, and in rice fields. It has also been 

 reported from Kansas and Mexico. 



This large, rat-like species is the type and only representative of the 

 8ub-genus Oryzomys. It is eminently aquatic, only surpassed in this 

 respect by the Muskrat. 



It has been identified by Mr. Frank W. Langdon, " with some hesita- 

 tion, on the strength of the posterior half of a small Eat found in the 

 stomach of a Red-shouldered Hawk, killed December 24, 1876," at Mad- 

 isonville, Ohio. The writer has since examined Mr. Langdon's specimen, 

 and finds that the feet and tail agree, in the minutest details, with the 

 very full description given by Dr. Coues, in the Monographs of North 

 American Rodentia. 



— Hesperomys (Vesperimus) aureolus (Aud. & Bach.) Wagner, the Red 

 Mouse, inhabits the central and south-ern States (Coues), but there is no 

 record of its residence in Ohio known to the present writer. 



Genus Aevicola Lac6p6de, 



This genus, as defined by Dr. Coues, is equivalent to the sub-family 

 Arvicolinm, excluding the Lemmings, the Synaptomys, of Baird, and the 

 rooted-molar group, Evotomys. 



Generic Characters. — Molars |:f, rootless, perennial, and prismatic; 

 crowns of molars divided into several closed islands of dentine by folds 



