﻿No, 12. NOETH AMERICAN FAUNA. July, 1896. 



THE GENERA AND SUBGENERA OF VOLES AND LEilMINGS. 



By Gerrit S. Miller, Jr. 



The following revision of the genera and subgenera of voles and lem- 

 mings is chiefly the result of a study made in the Division of Ornithol- 

 ogy and Mammalogy of the collections belonging to the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. This material has been supplemented by 

 specimens from my own private collection and those of Mr. Outram 

 Bangs, Mr. S. ^T. Ehoads, and Dr. 0. Hart Merriam. I have also had 

 access to the voles and lemmings in the American Museum of Natural 

 History, the United States ^sTational Museum, and the British Museum. 

 Thanks are due to all who have placed material at my disposal, and 

 especially to Mr. (Jldfield Thomas, curator of mammals in the British 

 Museum. 



Hitherto no attempt has been made to compare in detail the voles 

 and lemmings of the Old and New Worlds. This is the necessary result 

 of the poor quality and small number of specimens from the opposite 

 side of the Atlantic to be found in museums and private collections in 

 both Europe and America. In consequence of this lack of material, 

 writers who have been thoroughly acquainted with indigenous voles 

 and lemmings have either made no comi^arison of these with exotic 

 forms, or have reached faulty or at least incomplete conclusions with 

 regard to groups occupying widely separated geographic regions. 



For determining the relationships of the different voles and lemmings 

 the collection in the British Museum offers exceptional facilities. It 

 contains representatives of all the recent genera and subgenera found 

 in the Old World, and lacks only one of those peculiar to America. 

 The collection is, moreover, especially rich in specimens identified by 

 the more prominent writers on the subject — a circumstance of the 

 utmost imi^ortance. 



The drawings for the illustrations in this paper, except fig. 9 and 

 Pis. I and II, were made under my constant supervision by Mr. F. 

 Miiller. Pis. I and II were prepared by Dr. James 0. McOonnelL 

 Figs. 4, 5, 8, and 10 of PI. II were drawn in ink by Dr. McOannell from 

 pencil drawings made at the British Museum by Mr. Hollick. Fig. 7 

 of the same plate is by Dr. McConnell from a pencil drawing by Mr. A. 



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