46 Robert K. Rose 



lished manuscripts, reported that collections of Dismal Swamp mam- 

 mals were made during a total of 23 weeks in that period. A number of 

 new species (now recognized as subspecies) were collected then, mostly 

 near Lake Drummond. The greater short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevi- 

 cauda telmalestes Merriam; southeastern shrew, Sorex longirostris 

 fisheri Merriam; southern bog lemming, Synaptomys cooperi helaletes 

 Merriam; and muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus macrodon (Merriam), were 

 collected and named then. During the same period Rhoads and Young 

 (1897) described the dark-colored meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvani- 

 cus nigrans Rhoads, from nearby northeastern North Carolina. In sum, 

 the Dismal Swamp and nearby coastal marshes have several mammals 

 that are morphologically distinguishable from other populations of 

 these species, strongly suggesting genetic and perhaps geographic isola- 

 tion of their populations in the past. One of Handley's (1980) concerns 

 was that man-induced changes in the Swamp may have removed the 

 ecological barriers between Swamp and upland subspecies. The likely 

 result of such an event would be Loss of the Dismal Swamp subspecies 

 through genetic "swamping out" of the smaller gene pool. Of course, 

 this is the equivalent of ecological extinction of the taxon. 



C. S. Brimley (1897) was among the investigators who wrote about 

 Dismal Swamp mammals, for he included the results of small mammal 

 collections made between 1891-1894 by the Smithwick brothers near the 

 head of Albemarle Sound in his history of the mammals of Bertie 

 County, North Carolina. Brimley later (1905) summarized the findings 

 of several investigators, including collections from the northeastern 

 corner of North Carolina close to the Swamp. Both papers, while 

 including some Dismal Swamp information, were based mostly on small 

 mammals that Brimley and his brother collected near Raleigh, Wake 

 County, from 1888 to 1900. 



After a hiatus of about 25 years, sporadic collecting in the Swamp 

 resumed in the 1930s. Handley's 1953 visits for a week each in February 

 and June seem to have been typical of the trapping efforts made there. 

 One of the longer mammal studies conducted in the Swamp was that of 

 F. E. Breidling, Old Dominion University (ODU), who in 1979-1980 

 trapped four study areas for one week during each of three seasons. 



Handley (1979) reported that the entire known Dismal Swamp 

 fauna of mice and shrews consists of 12 species. Most investigators have 

 found the white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus easti Paradiso, to 

 be the most common small mammal, and about half of them have also 

 caught numerous golden mice, Ochrotomys n. nuttalli (Harlan), and 

 short-tailed shrews, Blarina brevicauda. Five other species — the cotton 

 mouse, Peromyscus g. gossypinus (Harlan); eastern harvest mouse, Rie- 

 throdontomys h. humulis (Audubon and Bachman); southern bog lemm- 

 ing; and southeastern shrew — were found to be numerous by only one 

 or two collectors. Handley (1979) attributed this to spotty distributions 



