94 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
of the glacier, far* from any rocks or earth. He was tripping downhill as if he 
had just been to the summit and was enjoying the experience hugely. 
At Camp Muir, 10,000 feet, on September 26, the writer caught white-footed 
mice (Peromyscus maniculatus oreas), western bushy-tailed wood rats {Neo- 
toma cinerea occidentalis) and the large-footed meadow mouse {Microtus rich- 
ardsoni arvicoloides) . 
The occurrence of the large-footed meadow mouse at Camp Muir is perhaps 
the most striking record of all. Ordinarily dwelling in moist alpine parks and 
meadows at an average altitude of 5500 feet, this animal has here climbed to a 
height of 10,000 feet, or approximately 3500 feet above the tree line. Instead of 
pleasant meadow country with an abundance of water and herbaceous vegeta- 
tion, the mouse here encounters rocks, furious winds, snow and ice, and has only 
lichens and a very few hardy plants on which to feed. The mouse was captured 
under the wall of a stone cabin. That he was hard pressed for food may be 
indicated by the fact that his stomach contained a piece of an old woolen sock. 
The altitudes attained by the mammals on Mount Rainier are not so remark- 
able in themselves, for it is well known that several mammals attain the summit 
of Mount Whitney, California, 14,504 feet, the highest point in the United States 
south of Alaska. The chief interest is in the fact that while timberline on Mount 
Whitney averages perhaps 11,500 or 12,000 feet in altitude, the trees on Mount 
Rainier stop at an average altitude of 6500 feet. Thus the mammals seen on the 
summit of Rainier had climbed between 7000 and 8000 feet above timberline. 
— Walter P. Taylor. 
DOES THE CUTEREBRA EVER EMASCULATE ITS HOST? 
In the early 50’s, Dr. Asa Fitch, State Entomologist of New York, was fre- 
quently informed by the hunters in the vicinity of Lakeville, New York, that 
at least one-half of the male squirrels of all the species found in the country 
were castrated. Some thought that jealous rivals of the same species did it, 
and some blamed the redsquirrels for all this maiming. 
In August 13, 1856, Doctor Fitch had sent him a chipmunk in whose scrotum 
was a bot-fly grub. He says (N. Y. State Entom. 3rd Ann. Rept., 1857, Supp., 
p. 479): “I find the fleshy glandular tissue of the testicles wholly consumed, 
nothing of them remaining but their empty outer skin There are 
some hunters, however, that say they have found two grubs in the scrotum of 
some Squirrels, and they conjecture that it is by these that the testicles are 
destroyed.” .... ‘‘From what has now been stated I think that everyone 
will agree with me in the opinion, that it is by this fly that the Squirrels in our 
country are emasculated” (p. 482). 
In 1889 Dr. C. Hart Merriam contributed to “Insect Life,” vol. 1, p. 215 
(U. S. Dep. Agr.) a paper containing the following facts: He had frequently 
found the cuterehra in or near the scrotum of the graysquirrel, the redsquirrel, 
and chipmunk. On the 7th and 8th of October, 1885, he killed more than 50 
chipmunks at the south end of Lake Champlain and found fully one-half infected 
with cuterehra. More females than males were thus afflicted. The “warbles” 
were anywhere from the umbilical region to the genitals; in a few cases they were 
in the axilla, and in one or two in the upper part of the foreleg; a number had 2, 
some had 3 of the bots. 
