RODENT I A-—GEOMYINAE. 
367 
be derived from the fore feet or hand ; the size and shape of the claws, and their proportion to 
the whole hand; the length of the digits and palm, and the position and extension of the thumb; 
hut many of these points cannot he taken into consideration unless the hand is perfectly straight 
and hent at a considerable angle to the fore arm, which is seldom if ever the case, unless spe¬ 
cially attended to in drying, owing to the contraction and flexure of the joints. The tail is apt 
to vary greatly in measuring different skins of the same species, owing to the fact that the skin 
and flesh of the body encircles it to a considerable distance beyond its base, the tail itself ap¬ 
pearing to spring from the extremity of a cone. In preparing the specimens, if the entire 
vertebrae are left in, the skin thus encircling the basal portion of the tail may, in drying, enclose 
the vertebrae firmly and closely, and thus the entire length he indicated. As frequently, how¬ 
ever, the vertebrae are taken out or cut off and the basal portion stuffed out, entirely obliterating 
in that region any vestige whatever of this appendage, represented only by the extremity. It 
is, in all cases, a good rule to measure from the end of the dorsal skin, or where the peculiar 
short fur of the tail begins, even though other measurements be indicated. 
These animals, too, are more than usually liable to being overstuffed, so as to indicate a length 
of body several inches greater than in nature. 
