
THE MARSH OR RICE-FIELD MICE OF THE 
EASTERN UNITED STATES. 
S N: RHOADS. 
THE status of the rice-field mice (Oryzomys) found in the 
marshes of the Atlantic coast from Delaware Bay to the Gulf 
of Mexico has been of uncertain fixity since our first knowledge 
of their existence in 1837. 
In that year a certain Rev. Dr. Harlan of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia is stated by the Rev. John 
Bachman to have used the skull of one of these mice, sent by 
him for identification to the Academy, as the basis of the first 
description of the species, published in .Sz//fimam's Journal. 
The name there given was Mus palustris, and the professed 
type a specimen in the Academy’s collection labeled as comi- 
ing from “Fast Land," near Salem, N.J. Until recently no 
other specimens had been secured in New Jersey, and natu- 
ralists had so far concluded that the animal was never found 
there that Mr. Outram Bangs, in a recent paper on the mam- 
mals of Florida and Georgia (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., p. 188, 
1898), decided to ignore Harlan's statement as to the type 
locality and refer it to South Carolina, whence the Bachman 
Specimens were procured. But recent investigations, based on 
the chance rediscovery of this interesting mouse in the coast 
marshes of Cumberland County, N. J., as announced two years 
ago by Mr. Witmer Stone, have enabled the writer to secure a 
sufficient series of specimens of Harlan's typical O. palustris 
to settle some points in this controversy, as indicated in the 
nr brief synopsis. 
. Harlan's marsh mouse, Oryzomys palustris ( Har lan). 
136 Mus poss Harlan. .Sz/ipkam's Amer. Journ. Sci. Vol. xxxi, 
Pp. 386. 
D. hoa lity: ^ Fast Land” (a term having no meaning to present 
inhabitants except as applied to upland, or land not needing reclamation 
from tides), near Salem, N. J. 
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