40 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



[No. 38. 



General characters. — Size of S. a. australis: Fore feet relatively large, 

 nails long and heavy; skull short, massive; mastoids, heavy; rostrum 

 short. 



Color. — Late winter pelage: Back golden sepia; face, chin, and 

 wrists bright zinc orange; underparts Sudan brown. Worn winter 

 pelage: Paler than in late winter pelage with less golden and zinc 

 orange, and showing more light neutral gray of base of hairs. 



STcull. — Small, short, and heavy, narrow through mastoids; mas- 

 toids heavy; rostrum short; mandible heavy; coronoid process and 

 angle of mandible short ; ascending ramus wide; superior notch shallow. 



Measurements. — ^Average of 2 adult males from type locality: Total 

 length, 137.5 (134-141); tail vertebrse, 21.8 (21-22.5) ; hind foot, 17.8 

 (17.5-18). STcull: Average of 2 skulls of adult males from type 

 locality: Greatest length, 31.5 (31.4-31.6); palatilar length, 12.8 

 (12.6-12.9) ; mastoidal breadth, 16.5 (16.4-16.6) ; interorbital breadth, 

 7.1 (7-7.1); maxillary tooth row, 10 (9.9-10); mandibular molar- 

 premolar row, 9.7 (9.6-9.8). 



Remarks. — Four of the eight moles examined from Anastasia Island 

 are topotypes in the Bangs collection and were collected by Outram 

 Bangs, February 12-16, 1895; the other four are in the Field Museum 

 and were collected by Thaddeus Surber at Espanita, Anastasia Island, 

 January 25-29, 1901. The two series are very unlike. The speci- 

 mens collected at Espanita have no orange or golden suffusions and 

 can not be separated by skin characters from 8. a. australis of the 

 mainland; the skulls, however, are shorter than those of typical 

 australis and have shorter rostra and slightly heavier mastoids, and 

 in these characters are more like those of S. a. anastasse. In a letter, 

 in regard to these specimens, dated August 19, 1913, Surber states: 



"Espanita" was the home of a Mr. Middleton (a Georgian) located well toward the 

 southern end of the island about 15 miles south of St. Augustine, on the Matanzas 

 River side of island. Most of my work was done in the vicinity of his house, near 

 which I was camped. * * * in the flesh I could never detect any difference 

 between these island moles and those from the mainland. * * * There were no 

 towns nor villages on the island during my visit in 1901, so that I was forced to use this 

 designation (Espanita) for the locality. Mr. Bangs's specimens came from the lower 

 end of the island, I believe, but two or three miles from where these were secui'ed. 



Bangs, in a letter to the writer October 23, 1913, referring to the 

 locality where Surber collected, states: 



I am quite sure * * * that that part of the island is quite different from where 

 I was. He got Peromyscus floridanus where he was. In the parts of the island I 

 worked I never saw it at all though I trapped hundreds of small mammals. In fact, 

 there was no country suitable to it. ¥.rh.ere I caught my moles they were not common. 

 They were in the salt flats and low sandy stretches, where their long tunnels extended 

 about in the white sand and through the flats. There was very little vegetation 

 here except, of course, "sea oats." 



