vi PAJriLIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



of the most remarkable and typical little mammals 

 of Florida, a water rat {Microtus neofiher allenii), 

 had absolutely no record whatever. In a pamphlet en- 

 titled The Land Mammals of Florida, by Mr. Outram 

 Bangs (1898), of seventy-three forms described, seven- 

 teen are new. When Wilson wrote, in 1812, he knew 

 positively nothing at all of the songs of the nightin- 

 gale of America — the hermit thrush — and the veerj, 

 the thrush named for him ! Even in so late a book 

 as The Fur-bearing Animals of Elliott Coues, the 

 European ermine is confused with two of our Ameri- 

 can weasels. Such an error as that in these days of 

 greater light would be deemed inexcusable. 



It is to some of the younger students of Nature 

 that we are indebted for a more concise knowledge 

 of the relationship of animals — in other words, the 

 exact identification of distinct species and varieties. 

 Dr. Merriam makes this fact plain in the following 

 tribute to the work of Mr. Bangs. He says : " Until 

 very recently the group of weasels has been in a state 

 of chaos, but now, thanks to Mr. Outram Bangs's ex- 

 cellent paper entitled A Review of the Weasels of 

 Eastern North America, the obscurity that has so 

 long surrounded our Eastern species has been cleared 

 away." * 



* Vide United States Department of Agriculture, Division of 

 Ornithology and Mammals. Bulletin No. 11, June, 1896. 



