THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Voi. x1x—HEBRUARY, 1885.—No. 2. 
THE HABITS OF SOME ARVICOLINZ} 
BY EDGAR R. QUICK AND A. W. BUTLER. 
OUR species of Arvicolinz have been found in Southeastern 
Indiana, and it is to certain observations of the habits of these 
that your attention is called. The species referred to are Synap- 
tomys cooperi Bd., Arvicola pinetorum LeC., Arvicola riparius LeC., 
and Arvicola austerus Ord. The latter is the rarest species, and 
A, riparius is by far the most common. 
The credit of the discovery of Cooper’s field mouse in Indiana 
belongs to that pioneer of Western naturalists, Dr. Rufus Hay- 
mond, who, in 1866, sent an alcoholic specimen of this mouse 
from Brookville to the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Haymond 
says of this specimen: “I think it was in June, 1866, that I dis- 
covered this mouse about a mile north of Brookville. I thought 
it a common meadow mouse (A. riparius); when caught I put it 
into an old leather purse in which I had previously confined a 
small shrew. When I reached home I found the shrew had killed 
the mouse; the little murderer Soon fell a victim to the law of 
blood revenge, and was packed with its victim in a jar and sent 
to the Smithsonian Institution.” This mouse is numbered 9963 
in the Smithsonian collection. 
No other specimen was taken in Indiana for several years. In 
1879 one of the writers took the second specimen found in this 
State, about three miles below Brookville and four miles from 
where the first one was taken thirteen years before. Specimen 
after specimen followed this one, all being taken from the same 
locality. 
From the most reliable information obtainable, we conclude 
1 Read before the section of eet! A. A. A. S. at Philadelphia, Sept., 1884. 
VOL, XIX.—NO. II, 
