184 



Forest and stream. 



[Sept. 2-?, 1889. 



Fig. 2. THE ROUND-TAILED OR FLORIDA MUSKRAT (Nqofiber alleni). 



One-half natural size; copied and adapted by the author from the Smithsouian Report, 1884. (Part II.), 



and eating its own species. It is exceedingly prolific, 

 lives in burrows, and is nocturnal in its habits." 



The various genera of rats and mice differ from each 

 other in some degree structurally, decidedly in some 

 directions in their dental formula?, but on the whole 

 they are quite homogeneous as a group, and never attain 

 any great size in any of the species, though some of 

 them are exceedingly small, as the little harvest mouse 

 of Europe, one of the tiniest of mammals. Wallace has 

 pointed out how they are being constantly spread over 

 the world, by ships, or transported from island to island, 

 and continent to continent on sea by means of driftwood 

 and other material. Thus it is. too, that new species are 

 ever on the road toward development, as existing types 

 are by such means brought to different regions, where 

 they are submitted to widely different influences, as food, 

 climate and environment. Rats and mice are never dis- 

 tinguished by highly colored pelts, but are given chiefly 

 to browns, whites, buffs, and ochres, while one of the 

 common rats is quite black. Such coloring affords one 

 of their best means of protection, for they are thus rend- 

 ered more difficult to be seen by birds of prey and the 

 lesser sized carnivora. which seek them for food. 



never made the attempt to secure the inmate. These 

 nests, when built about the roots of a small tree, were 

 usually of a dome-Use form, and consisted principally of 

 short dry sticks of varying lengths, bones, dead cactus 

 leaves, dry, loose manure, pine cones, and indeed any- 

 thing they could manage to lay their paws upon and drag 

 over to the heap. One time I saw one of these nests built 

 in the rocks on the side of a canon, near where the 

 Navajo Indians had buried some of their dead, and where 

 the rat, of a decorative turn of mind, had cocked up on 

 top of his rubbish-pile nest the skull of a Navajo baby. 

 Inside one of the piles, usually near it* center, the 

 Neotoma constructs what is really its true nest, a globular 

 wad of the soft shreds of the pine bark, and such other 

 pliable material as it can secure. This part of the struc- 

 ture is about as big as a man's head, and has an opening 

 at one side; and so all the rubbish heaped upon and about 

 it simply serves as a protection against marauding 

 coyotes and other vermin. 



To capture one of these Neotomas I generally put on a 

 good pair of stout gloves, and kicking away his pile of 

 rubbish with my boots, I pounced upon the heart of the 

 establishment just so soon as I could seize the entire 



Fig. 3. TRUE'S PINON MOUSE (H. truci). 



A new Mexican form of this genus. Drawn life sizej by the author from a specimen in his own collection. 



highly interesting form has come into the hands of 

 science, and so far as its habits are concerned, they are 

 quite unknown. The specimen was captured by" Mr. 

 William Wittfeld, at Georgiana, Merritt's Island, Bre- 

 vard county, Fla., and other examples, with a full 

 account of its natural history, will be in demand. Mr. 

 True made the most of the specimen which came to him, 

 and his paper is full and well illustrated by figures, and 

 he says, "Throughout its entire structure the Florida 

 muskrat displays an affinity to Fiber on the one side and 

 to Arvicola on the other. It is strictly intermediate be- 

 tween the two genera." 



New mammals of any importance are not discovered in 

 this country as an every day occurrence in these times, 

 and I look upon this species as one of the most interest- 

 ing which has come to light for some time past. 



Believing that a figure of this "round-tailed muskrat," 

 published in the present connection, may assist in secur- 

 ing additional specimens, as well as giving my readers a 

 correct conception of its general appearance, I made a 

 careful copy of the drawing of it in Mr. True's paper, 

 referred to above, and offer the same herewith. The 

 general color of its coat is said not to differ materially 

 from the coat of our common species. 



Two genera of lemmings, each represented by a single 

 species, are also found in the group we have at present 

 under consideration, but as I have already alluded, in a 

 former paper, to their marvelous migrations, and as the 

 history of this animal is quite widely known, and our 

 species confined to Arctic America, Greenland and North- 

 western America, I will not especially refer to them here, 

 but upon some future occasion review our knowledge of 

 their natural history more in detail. 



Hosts of mice follow the lemmings in our family Muri- 

 dce, and thetee are arrayed under such genera as Synap~ 

 tornys, Evotomys, Anneola, Hesperomys and Ochetodon, 

 while a volume of no mean size could be filled with the 

 accounts of their varied habits and distributions, to say 

 nothing of the discussion, anatomical and otherwise, that 

 might be made upon the subject of their physical differ- 

 ences. Baird, Coues, Allen and others have allpaid great 

 attention to our United States forms, and have furnished 

 science with a deal of their history and structure. Small 

 as they are, mice play a very important part in nature's 

 drama; they are the main stay on the diet list of hawks, 

 owls, herons, and many of the smaller mammalian Carni- 

 vora; while in certain sections they become on occasions 

 the greatest grain pests the farmers have to dread; though 

 at other times years may pass by where he is compara- 

 tively exempt from their ravages, owing to the fact that 

 a season may have arrived with much rain, causing in- 

 undations which swept away and actually drowned 

 millions of meadow mice while it lasted, Some species 

 in the country districts come into our houses and barns, 

 and many of them ouild pretty little nests, and most of 

 them are prolific, rearing many young each season. All 

 are easily tamed, and if kept in commodious quarters 

 afford us in this way the best means of studying their 

 habits, something it is quite hard to accomplish in a state 

 of nature, as many of them are nocturnal, and thus sel- 

 dom seen unless hunted for in their daily retreats and 

 hiding places, while at all times these little creatures are 

 timid and retiring, and not likely to pursue their normal 

 avocations in the presence of man. 



The "List" quotes the little harvest mouse (Ochetodon 

 humilis) as occurring in the "Mississippi Valley and Gulf 

 States to Mexico." I can extend the range of this species, 

 for I have found it breeding here at Fort Wingate, New 

 Mexico, and it probably occurs still further to the west- 

 ward. In the Proceedings of the U. S. National Museum, 

 a year or so ago, I figured the head of this species, as well 

 as some species of Hesperomys. 



During the spring of 1885 I found a new species of 

 Hesperomys here at Fort Wingate,, which I described as 

 True's pifion mouse (H. truei), and have taken many 

 specimens of it since. It is especially noticeable from the 

 great size of its ears, while in color it differs markedly 

 from our Eastern field mice, as for example the common 

 white-f ooted or deer mouse. In habit it is given to Jiving 

 among the pifion trees (P. edulis) which cover the moun- 

 tainsides of this region, and it generally constructs its 

 nest in the hollow of a dead one. Once or twice I have 

 shot specimens of this mouse out of these trees, and it 

 will when alarmefd often run up one, even to the upper- 

 most branches. 



Of the cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidas) an author before 

 me says, "It is very abundant in the Southern States, 

 where it prefers hedges, ditches and deserted fields to 

 gardens and cultivated lands; it feeds on seeds, grass and 

 vegetables, but relishes flesh, and readily devours birds 

 that fall wounded in the fields; it also eats crayfish, which 

 it gets from the ditches. It is very voracious, attacks 

 and devours other species of mice and rats, also killing 



Wood rats of the genus Neotoma close our "List" of 

 the Muridce, and of these we have in the United States 

 three species, and one for Mexico and Guatemala. Op- 

 portunity has never been afforded me to study the East- 

 ern types of Neotoma, but there is a very interesting 

 form here in New Mexico, to which I have paid no little 

 attention. Last spring I made up several skins and alco- 

 holics of this Neotoma and forwarded them to Mr, True 

 of the U. S. National Museum, who carefully examined 

 them and arrived at the conclusion that they were but 

 western varieties of our common wood rat (N. floridana), 

 but with the colors of its pelage considerably lighter. In 

 the Proc. U. S. National Museum for 1885, I figure the 

 superior aspect of the skull of one of these rats, and re- 

 cord some notes there in regard to them. Nearly four 

 years ago, when I first came to Fort Wingate, these ani- 

 mals were plenty about the station, and I had no trouble 

 in securing specimens within ten minutes' walk of my 

 house. Their nests were to be found in any of the hills 

 about the place, and consisted of a pile, often as much 

 as six or seven' bushels, of rubbish and sticks gath- 

 ered about the roots of some pine or pifion tree. Some- 

 times, however, the rat would choose as the site of 

 his domicile the cleft between two great rocks, or per- 

 haps under some big boulder, in which latter situation I 



mass in my hands. And rarely did I fail to find some- 

 body at home. It is in these nests that they spend the 

 winter, and in the spring rear their young; but I am in- 

 clined to believe they desert them during the warm sum- 

 mer months, for at such latter seasons I have always 

 found the nests empty, and more or less weather-worn. 

 As stated above, I haVe kept this little animal in con- 

 finement for months at a time, and although they have 

 many interesting habits, they are, on the whole, difficult 

 to tame, and make constant efforts to secure their liberty 

 again, even after they have been in limbo for a number 

 of weeks. Food of all kinds is eaten by them, and on 

 several occasions, where one of my captives got out in 

 the pantry, his cage was a sight to behold next'moining,. 

 for he had. packed it full of oyster crackers, apples, lump< 

 sugar, raisins and almonds, to the measure of a full half 

 peck. 



These wood rats of which I am speaking have pretty 

 bushy tails, with about as much show of hair as the' 

 spotted spermophiles, and have large and rather expres- 

 sive eyes. Both their sight and hearing is very acute,, 

 especially the latter. 



In my next paper I will have something to say about 

 the gophers (Geomyidai) and pouched rats (Saecomyidce), 

 and hope to complete this large order shortly afterward. 



