242 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASII^ 



Meadow Mofsb — Microtus drummondi (Audubon and 



Baclinian). 



Quite a large number of skins were forwarded from Eort 

 Anderson to Washington. They were obtained from the 

 Eskimos of the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers, while a 

 few were secured in the neighbourhood of the fort. In 

 severely cold winters individual mice are often found dead 

 in stores and outhouses, and also on the snow in sparsely- 

 wooded tracts of country. Disease may, however, be some- 

 times the real cause of death. Some Indians assert that 

 several species of mice breed oftener than once annually. 



Little Meadow Mouse — Microtus macfarlani 

 Merriam. 



The Indians, and especially the Eskimos, who resorted 

 to Eort Anderson, supplied a large proportion of the speci- 

 mens received by the Smithsonian Institution from the Mac- 

 kenzie Eiver region, in course of the years from 1861 to 

 1866, inclusive. There are seasons during which mice are 

 exceptionally abundant in different parts of the great Cana^ 

 dian N"orth-West. l*J"amed after the writer. 



Chestitut-cheeked Mouse — Microtus xanthognathus 

 (Leach). 



This comparatively large mouse is very abundant most 

 seasons in the far north, as well as along the Arctic coast of 

 Canada. Numerous skins thereof were secured at Eort 

 Yukon (Alaska), Forts McPherson, Anderson, Good Hope, 

 Norman, Simpson, Big Island, Eae, and Resolution, Great 

 Slave Lake, Mackenzie River District. 



Tawny Lemming — Lemmus trimucronatus (Richardson). 



From the polar shores of Liverpool Bay and Cape Bath- 

 urst, from the lower Anderson River, from the neighbour- 



