Notes on some Small Rodents found in North America. Ill 



NOTES ON SOME OP THE SMALLER RODENTS 

 FOUND IN NORTH-WEST AMERICA. 



{Continued from No. 2>Q,p. 422.) 



BY J. K. LOKD, F.Z.S., 

 Late Naturalist to the British North American Boundary Commission. 



THE APLODONTIA LEPORINA (Rich.). 



SEWELLEL OR SHOW'TL OF THE NESQHALLY INDIANS. 



Synonymes. 

 Aplodontia leporina, Rich., E.B.A. i., 211, plate xviii. ; And Bach. N. A., Qua. 



iii., 1853, 99, pi. cxxiii. 

 Hoplodon leporinus, Wagler System, Amh., 1830. 

 Anisonyx rufa, Rafinesque Am. Month. Mg. ii., 1817. 

 Arctomys rufa, Harlan E. Am. 1825, 308. 

 Setoellel, Lewis and Clark's Travels, ii. 1815, 176. 



General Dimensions. — Nose to ear, 2 in. 7 lines ; nose to eyes, 1 in. 5 lines ; tail 

 to end of vertebrae, 9 lines ; tail to end of hair, 1 in. 2 lines ; ear, height, 5 

 lines ; nose to root of tail, 14 in. 6 lines. 



My first introduction to this rare and curious little Rodent was 

 on the bank of the Chilukweyuk river. My canvas house was 

 pitched in a snug spot under the shade of a clump of cotton- 

 wood trees, that grew close to a stream, that like liquid crystal, 

 rippled past in countless channels, threading its way between 

 massive boulders of syenite, and trap, and granite, and green- 

 stone, that had been rounded and polished till they looked like 

 giant marbles. But is not every one of these stones a silent 

 record, a history in itself, of the terrible force of the summer 

 floods ? A few short months ago and this tranquil stream was 

 a roaring muddy torrent, fed by melting snow. Endowed with 

 freedom, what can resist the force of water ? Rocks, and 

 stones, and gravel, and mud, are dragged slowly along, 

 grinding their predecessors as they go, until they come into 

 the light again on the subsidence of the flood, and rest, as 

 do these worn veterans, far from their mountain home. 



Towering up behind me were the Cascade Mountains, their 

 snow-clad summits dim in the haze of distance, their craggy 

 slopes split into chasms and ravines, so deep, and dark, and 

 lonesome, that no man's footfall has ever disturbed their 

 solitudes ; so densely wooded up to the very snow-line with 

 pine, and cedar, and spruce-trees, that not even a bare rock 

 peeped out to break the sombre monotony of the dark green 

 foliage. 



Before me, stretching away for about three miles, was 



