NOTES ON SOME IOWA RODENTS 
355 
eastern portion of the state it is reported to have come in only 
during the last five or six years. In the two northern tiers of 
counties all the way across the state this form is now quite com- 
mon, particularly to the north and west, and it is not an un- 
common thing to find it in counties much farther to the south. 
Its exact limits of distribution in the southern portion of the 
state have not yet been definitely ascertained. 
Lepus calif or nicns melmiotis Mearns. — Great Plains Jack Rab- 
bit. Mr. E. W. Nelson, in his paper on ‘‘The Rabbits of North 
America” in North American Fauna No. 29, August, 1909, page 
146, gives the geographic distribution of this form as follows: 
“Great Plains from east-central and northern Texas, north- 
eastern New Mexico and north through western half of Indian 
Territory, all of Oklahoma, extreme southwestern part of Mis- 
souri, all of Kansas and Nebraska, except perhaps extreme east- 
ern parts, southwestern Dakota, southeastern Wyoming, and all 
of Colorado east of Rocky Mountains.” A single specimen of 
this variety has been taken in the southern part of Johnson 
county and makes a notable addition to the leporine fauna of 
the state. The known distribution of what has been supposed to 
be a strictly western form is hereby increased considerably to 
the eastward, although it can scarcely be considered more than 
accidental in Iowa. 
In the three families of rodents above mentioned the delimita- 
tion into varieties and geographic races has been carried to the 
extreme and the writer here desires to enter his protest upon 
this minute and seemingly uncalled for division. In many 
cases the real evidence seems insufficient to substantially bear 
out the true facts. This minute differentiation by a few so- 
called “specialists” creates much confusion for the average 
worker in the group and results in the expenditure of much time 
and energy that could more profitably be spent in other phases 
of the work. Even the specialist is sometimes “hard put” to 
recognize one of his own creations. 
In conclusion, it may be of at least passing interest to dwell 
for a moment upon the attempts that have been made to reduce 
the numbers of the more noxious rodents through the method 
of offering bounties. By enactment of the thirty-second general 
assembly of Iowa, a state-wide bounty of ten cents is paid upon 
each pocket gopher brought in to the office of the county audi- 
