1895.] Zoology. 589 
bad in American affairs. Mrs. Alice Bodington, however, redeemed 
' the reputation of her countrymen by writing to the Secretary of the 
Cold Storage Co., to ascertain the facts in the case. She received the 
following reply : 
“ While there is some foundation for the newspaper article, it is 
somewhat exaggerated. Our cold storage house is separated into rooms 
of various sizes, varying from 10° to 40° above zero. 
“About a year ago we discovered mice in one of the rooms of the 
cold storage house. We removed one of the cats from the general 
warehouse to the room referred to in the cold storage house. While 
there, she had a litter of several kittens. Four of these were transferred 
into one of the general warehouses, leaving three in the cold storage 
house. After the kittens were old enough to take care of themselves, 
we put the old cat back into the house we had taken her from. The 
change of climate or temperature seemed to affect her almost immedi- 
ately. She got very weak and languid. We placed her again in the 
cold storage room, when she immediately revived. 
“ While the feelers of the cats in the cold storage room are of the 
usual length, the fur is thick and the cats are larger, stronger and 
healthier than the cats in any of the other warehouses.” 
Thus the only result of the change of environment was the usual one 
which ensues on the advent of winter in extratropical latitudes gener- 
ally. It is interesting as showing that the effect is really produced by 
the low temperature, and is not a survival through natural selection 
of a chance variation, as a certain school of evolutionists would have 
us believe. 
A New Harvest Mouse from Florida.—lIn a paper entitled 
“Contributions to the Mammalogy of Florida,” published in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Acrdemy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1894, 
I had the pleasure of recording the first capture of a Reithrodontomys 
in Florida. 
This specimen seemed to indicate good sub-specific characters in 
comparison with R. humilis of more northern latitudes, but owing to 
its apparent immaturity, I decided to postpone a description until other 
specimens were taken. 
Subsequently, Mr. F. M. Chapman recorded, in the Bulletin of the 
American Museum of Natural History, of 1894, the taking of another 
specimen. The apparent rarity is confirmed by the experience of my 
friend Mr. Outram Bangs, who, in a list of about five hundred speci- 
mens of rodents taken by him in Florida the present winter (1894-5), 
