84 
GEORYCHUS HELVOLUS.-Rich. 
Tawny Lemming. 
PLATE C XX.— Fig. 1. 
G-. Pollice instructus, naso obtuso albido, capite fulvo nigroque vario, 
corpore supra fulvo, infra pallidiore, magnitudine G. Norvegici. 
CHARACTERS. 
Size of the Lapland Lemming nose , blunt and light coloured ; head, tawny 
black ; body, reddish-orange above, paler beneath ; feet, furnished with thumbs. 
SYNONYMES. 
Arvicola (Lemmus) Helvolus. Richardson, Zool. Jour., No. 12, p. 517, 1828. 
(Georychus?) Helvolus. Rich., Fauna Boreali Americana, p. 128. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Body, stout ; head, oval ; nose, short, blunt, and nearly on a line with 
the incisors ; eyes, small ; ears, broad and not long— shorter than the fur, 
and clothed with hair near the edges ; tail, very short, clothed with stiff 
hairs, which are longest near the extremity, and converge to a point ; 
claws of both extremities much alike, greatly compressed, and sharp 
pointed ; the claws have an oblong narrow groove underneath. 
The thumbs on the fore feet consist almost entirely of a thick, flat, 
squarish nail, resembling that of the Norway Lemming, and have, as in 
that species, an obliquely truncated summit ; in the Tawny Lemming, 
however, this summit presents two obscure points. 
The fur on the body is about nine lines long ; that on the nose and 
extremities, very short. 
COLOUR. 
Body, reddish-orange, interspersed on the back and sides with a number 
of hairs, longer than the fur, which are tipped with black ; on the upper 
parts of the head, around the eyes, and on the nape of the neck, the black 
