A POCKET MOUSE IN CONFINEMENT. 
J. A. ALLEN. 
THE arid plains and deserts of the West are inhabited by 
many kinds of small rodents, some of which, like the pocket 
mice, the kangaroo rats, and most of the pocket gophers and 
' prairie dogs, are peculiar to these arid areas, and constitute 
their most characteristic forms of mammalian life. They 
range in greater or less abundance and diversity of forms from 
near the northern boundary of the United States to southern 
Mexico. Their habits of life are such that they must pass 
much of each year without access to water, and the question 
has often been raised as to whether they are able to exist with- 
out water, deriving sufficient moisture from the seeds and fresh 
vegetation that form their food, or whether they sink burrows 
or “ wells” to a sufficient depth to obtain it from subterranean 
sources. In the case of prairie dogs this latter theory has 
received wide acceptance, but, of course, has never been 
demonstrated. 
The few observations that have been made on captive animals 
belonging to these several groups have sufficed to show that 
access to water is not essential to their welfare in captivity ; 
but perhaps no instance affording quite such satisfactory evi- 
dence has been given as the case here related. In the summer 
of 1895 a valued correspondent and well-known naturalist, Mr. 
H. P. Attwater, of San Antonio, Texas, captured near San 
Antonio a number of living examples of two species of pocket 
mice (Perognathus mearnsi Allen and Perognathus paradoxus 
spilotus Merriam), which he kept alive during the following 
winter and kindly sent, still alive, by express to the American 
Museum of Natural History, New York City, in June, 1896 
There were four individuals, two of each of the species named 
above. One of the larger (Perognathus paradoxus spilotus) 
died on reaching New York, from the effects of the journey ; 
the other lived contentedly for several weeks in an open box 
