MAMMALIA. . 13] 
The Body is broad and rather flat, and is everywhere covered with a beautifully fine and 
soft fur, which is about nine lines long on the back, but rather shorter on the belly. The 
colour of the head and dorsal aspect of the neck and shoulders is a mixed reddish-gray, 
formed from the mingling of the clove-brown, yellowish-brown, and black tips of the hairs in 
nearly equal proportion. The back is chestnut-brown, but many of the longer hairs are tipped 
with black. The sides are reddish-orange, and the belly, chin, and throat, gray, intermixed 
with many orange-coloured hairs. The colours of this animal very strongly resemble those of 
the Tawny Lemming; but its nose is deep black, whilst the nose of the latter is pale. The 
tail projects a few lines beyond the fur, is clothed with stiff hairs converging to a point, dark 
above, grayish-white below. 
The fore-legs are short, but the feet are moderately large, and turned outwards, like the 
feet of a turnspit dog. They are of a dark clove-brown colour above, and are clothed with 
longer white hairs posteriorly. ‘The (4) toes are naked underneath, and are armed with 
moderate-sized strong nails, curved downwards, and inclined outwards. They are of an 
oblong form, convex above, not compressed, are excavated underneath more broadly than 
the nails of any of the other American lemmings I have met with, and have sharp edges 
fitted for scraping away the earth. The thumb is almost entirely composed of a strong nail 
which has two slightly convex surfaces, a strap-shaped outline, and a truncated extremity, 
from which three small points project. The palms are narrow. 
The posterior extremities are considerably longer than the fore ones, the thighs and legs 
being tolerably distinct from the body. The sole is narrow, long, and somewhat oblique, 
having its inner edge turned a little forwards. The toes are longer, and the claws as long, 
but more slender than those of the fore-feet, and they are much compressed. In the tawny 
lemming (No. 40.) the claws of both the hind and fore feet are compressed. 
DIMENSIONS 
Of a male killed at Fort Franklin. 
Inches. Lines. Inches. Lines. 
Length of head and body « - 5 0 Length of fur on the back : . 0 9 
ne tail . . 0 6 ap palm and claw of middle toe, nearly 0 6 
s head ° . . 1 5 a claw of middle toe . . 0 2 
= ears . . . ° 0 4 | “5 sole, and middle claw of hind-foot 0 9 
oc whiskers . . 1 3 
A female was only 43 inches long. 
Since this animal was described in the Appendix to Captain Parry’s Voyage, above quoted, 
asecond American species (A. helvolus), armed with a thumb-nail, has been discovered, 
and the trivial name of Five-fingered American Lemming being no longer distinctive, I have 
given it a new English appellation, after the officer who first procured a specimen. 
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