10 Geo. 5 Provincial Museum Report. P 9 



51% inches; spread, 32 inches; points, 29 inches. These two heads make a magnificent exhibit 

 on the walls of the Museum. 



Mr. E. W. Nelson, Chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey. United States Department 

 of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., wrote asking for the loan of our study series of Ochotona, 

 commonly called Little Chief Hare, as Mr. A. IT. Howell, a specialist in their Department, was 

 working on a revision of this genus, and wished to have specimens from every available portion 

 of the country, so as to assist him in his classification and distribution of this interesting little 

 mammal. Eighteen skins and skulls were loaned by this Department, which in due course were 

 returned. 



Bounties ox Wolves. 



According to the Orders in Council passed under the " Game Protection Act." all applications 

 for bounties on wolves must be sent to the Director of the Provincial Museum for verification. 



It is interesting to note that the Government, for the year 1919, was only called upon to pay 

 the bounty on 100 timber-wolves, the bounty on which was $10 per head, but was increased by 

 Order in Council to $15 on September 1st, 1919. It will be noticed that most of these applications 

 have come from the Northern Coast and Northern Interior of the Province, very few applications 

 for bounties being made south of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I have no 

 record of any applications being made on a wolf that was killed on Vancouver Island during the 

 year. Wolves must be getting very rare on Vancouver Island, as the price now offered in the 

 fur market ranges from $25 to $40, plus the Government bounty of $15 per head. This makes 

 the pelts quite valuable, and therefore these animals would not he passed up by any hunter or 

 trapper. 



Several coyotes have been turned in with the timber-wolves by persons making applications 

 for bounty ; these, however, have been identified as coyotes, and bounty refused, unless the pelts 

 were turned in to the Government to receive the Government bounty, which is only $2 on this 

 animal. 



Distribution in British Columbia of some Families of the Order Rodextia. 



Small Mammals. — Animal life is very generously represented in British Columbia, probably 

 due to the varied climate, resulting from the variance of altitude within its borders and a wide 

 range of physiographic conditions. The life-zones range through the Transition, Canadian, and 

 Hudsoniau to the Arctic- Alpine zones on the summits of the highest mountain ranges; the Upper 

 Sonoran zone covering a small strip of country in the Southern Okanagan. 



Under such conditions it is hardly to be wondered that many of the species overlap in their 

 range of distribution and subspecies become numerous. When the biological research of this 

 Province has been completed, where well-defined races are known to exist in these areas, no doubt 

 many new phases of intergrading will be revealed in the intervening territory. 



The series of small mammal-skins in the collection of the Provincial Museum numbers some 

 1,200 skins; a greater portion of these, however, belong to the order Rodentia. or rodents, and 

 it is proposed here to give a short account of the distribution throughout the Province of some 

 families belonging to this order. 



Murtike. 

 Genus Peromyscus. 



This genus includes the so-called wood-mice, deer-mice, vesper-mice, or white-footed mice, 

 and is by far the most numerous in species and subspecies of all our small rodents, and in some 

 form or another inhabit almost every portion of North America. 



From a large series of skins there might lie an unlimited discussion of the variation in 

 Peromyscus, and one would deduct from the study of groups of a long series from various 

 localities that intergradation existed more widely than generally supposed; individual variation 

 being greatest in specimens from localities between the ranges of two well-established forms. It 

 would therefore appear certain, with such a wide and frequent distribution, perfect intergrada- 

 tion must take place between related forms of different fauna! areas. Classification in such 

 cases would depend largely upon a set standard, and on which side of the fence intergrading 

 specimens j>elong must remain a matter of individual opinion. 



