RODENTIA-MURINAE-NEOTOMA FUSCIPES. 
495 
List of specimens. 
Catalogue number. | 
Corresponding No. of 
skull. 
Sex and age. 
Locality. 
When 
collected. 
Whence obtained. 
Original number. 
Nature of 
specimen. 
Measurements. 
From tip of nose 
to tail. 
Tail to end of 
verteb. 
Length of hind 
foot. 
Width of skull. 
Height of ear. 
554 
1676 
’<? 
Chavco Escondido, Mexico.... 
March, 1853 
Lieut. D. N. Couch, U. S. A.. 
86 
Skin. 
9.00 
4.25 
1.40 
1.05 
.90 
561 
Santa Rosalia Mexico.. 
38 
...do. 
6.50 
1.40 
.70 
NEOTOMA FUSCIPES, Cooper, Mss. 
Sp. Ch.—L arger than the house rat (Mus decumanus.) Tail nearly as long as the head and body, compressed at tip. 
Color above, yellowish rusty brown, lined with black. Beneath, soiled white. Hands and toes of hind feet white ; the 
upper part of metatarsus dusky. Tail uniformly dusky all round. 
(2679. $ ) This animal is about the size of the largest Norway rats, to which, in many respects, 
it hears a not distant resemblance. In the alcoholic specimen^ however, the head appears 
narrower. The ears are very large and wide, rather longer than broad ; their longest diameter 
in the line of the axis of the head ; both surfaces coated with short hairs, except around the 
meatus. The nose is covered with hair to the end ; the septum is naked, with a groove which 
extends to the incisors, and is naked at its bottom. The upper lip is deeply cleft to the base of 
the incisors, the cleft continued to the furrow of the nose, as described. The whiskers are very 
long, extending far behind the occiput, and at least as far as the axillae. The eyes are small, 
situated about midway between the nose and the meatus ; its distance from the base of the ear 
is about the length of the ear itself. 
The feet are rather small, and the fingers and toes appear short and thickened. The thumb is a 
thickened tubercle, armed with a small flat nail, which does not reach to the end of the tubercle, and 
hears a striking resemblance to that of the human hand. The third finger is longest; the fourth 
hut very little shorter; the second is a little shorter; the fifth claw reaches to the base of the adjacent 
fourth claw. The palms are naked, with five very large and angular tubercles almost covering the 
surface: one at the bases of the second and fifth fingers, respectively, one at the conjoint base of the 
third and fourth, and two large ones on the posterior part of the palm. The hind feet are short, 
(the fore ones about two-thirds their size.) The toes are short, occupying about one-third the 
whole length of the hind foot; their proportions are much as in the fore feet, the first one, how¬ 
ever, less rudimentary, of course, its claw reaching to the penultimate articulation of the second 
toe. The soles are naked under the entire metatarsus ; the tarsal portion is hairy, although a 
strip of naked skin penetrates it a short distance from near the outer edge of the metatarsal 
portion of the sole, and, in fact, appear, almost to he continued to the heel on account of the 
shortness of the hair. There are six very large tubercles on the sole ; one under the posterior 
third of the foot, the other five arranged almost precisely as in the fore foot. The tail is thick, 
cylindrical, and tapering to a rather obtuse tip ; it is longer than the body, without the head ; 
nearly equal to the entire length of head and body ; it is covered with short hairs, usually more 
or less concealing the annuli, which are much shorter than in the Norway rat. In the dried 
specimens the tail becomes much compressed towards the end, like that of the muskrat. 
