20 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
been known from the type specimen only, collected at Fort Chimo, 
Ungava, Labrador. 
My first specimen was caught under the roots of a young spruce in 
a smalhSphagnum bog inhabited by Evotomys gapperi , Synaptomys 
fatuus , Microtus pennsylvanicus fontigenus, Sorex per sonatas, S. 
albibarbis , and Blarina bremcauda. This accident led me to believe 
that the animal was a bog lover, and accordingly I lost much time in 
unsuccessful attempts to trap more in similar places. Quite acci¬ 
dentally I discovered that Phenacomys prefers a very different 
habitat. One morning while crossing a high upland barren which 
at first sight appeared to be wholly without mammalian inhabitants, 
I saw a small mouse dart from a dense mat of stunted blueberry 
bushes, cross an open space, and disappear in a hole beneath the 
small mound left by a rotting stump. By digging I found that the 
tunnel into which the mouse had run descended rather gradually, 
until at a distance of about two feet from the entrance it terminated 
some ten inches below the surface in a small chamber apparently 
ready for a winter nest but at this time empty excejDt for the 
inhabitant — an adult Phenacomys. Numerous collections of half 
eaten blueberries concealed in hollows and crevices under roots and 
decaying logs near by showed that some small rodent had joined 
forces with the bears in harvesting the berry crop on this lonely 
‘ prairie.’ Berries were so abundant and the mice so well fed that 
trapping proved almost a failure, and after a week’s work I had 
secured only a few Peromyscus and one more Phenacomys. After¬ 
ward I found Phenacomys inhabiting the ruined log huts of a former 
camp of Italian workmen on the barren plain south of Peninsula 
Harbor. Here I caught four more and saw a fifth which escaped 
in spite of the efforts of two dogs and five men. 
The favorite food of Phenacomys latimanus appears to be the 
berries of different species of Vaccinium and the leaves and twigs of 
Arctostapliylos uvaursi. I found large quantities of the latter cut 
and stored under small stumps and pieces of sheet iron near the 
abandoned camp. These mice also eat twigs of young paper birch 
and other shrubs, and the succulent parts of the stems of Potentilla 
tridentata. 
I have compared the Lake Superior specimens with the type of 
Phenacomys latimanus. They agree closely in all characters 
except color. Since the type was preserved in alcohol before it was 
skinned, its peculiar reddish coloration is doubtless abnormal. The 
