Jan., 1905.] 
' Our Smallest Carnivore. 
253 
le.ss been taken, but in the formerly confused condition of the 
nomenclature they may have been considered as immature, or as 
females of Bonaparte’s weasel. But since the publications of 
Bangs and Rhoads there should be no further difficulty in sep- 
,1 arating them from all other species. Careful collecting, with 
measurements made in the flesh, the sex determined, and the 
!• skulls cleaned and preserved, are necessary in order that the dis- 
I tribution of this species may be correctly determined. The prin- 
cipal object of this notice is to suggest the need and the value of 
much additional work upon the entire group of weasels. 
Fig. 1. Putorius allegheniensis Rhoads. 
It remains to be stated that, as Mr. Rhoads observed when 
he first described the Pennsylvania specimens, the characters of 
P. allegheniensis agree essentially with those of P. rixosns of 
Bangs, a species whose type locality is Osier, Saskatchewan, and 
whose distribution is “Arctic and boreal America from Alaska 
south at lea.st to Saskatchewan and Moose Factory”* The jus- 
tification for the publication of the species allegheniensis must lie 
wholly in the fact that there is so vast a gap of territorv between 
the Saskatchewan and the Pittsburgh region, crossed by one or 
two life zones, in which P. rixosns is not known to occur. The 
* Bangs, loc. cit. p. 21 
I 
