Vol. 30, pp. 159-160 July 27, 1917 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON NOTES ON MAINE MAMMALS. BY MANTON COPELAND AND ALTON S. POPE. For several years the writers have trapped small mammals in a number of different localities in Maine, and during that time certain rare or interesting species, infrequently recorded from the State, have come to light. It seems desirable to make some of these records available to those who are interested in the mammalian fauna of New England. Synaptomys cooperi fatuus. Brassua Lake. Two specimens were trapped by E. C. Pope, October 27 and 29, 1913, in a clearing overgrown by raspberry bushes in runs frequented by Evotomys and Microtus. Grafton. On September 10, 1915, a female, containing tbree embryos measuring about 6 mm. in length, was taken in a sphagnum bog under the roots of a small spruce tree. Dr. G. M. Allen, who has kindly ex-amined the skin and skull, makes the following report: " I have com-pared your Synaptomys carefully with the type series of S. fatuus and with Massachusetts specimens considered typical of S. cooperi, and should call the Grafton specimen S. cooperi fatuus. It is not quite adult, and it is peculiar in having the skull rather shorter in proportion to its breadth than what seems normal. In some respects it is intermediate between the two forms, but on the whole it is nearer fatuus. Its skull is not quite so narrow in proportion to the total length as in typical fatuus, yet not so wide as in cooperi ; the postorbital margin is more like fatuus, i. e., not so nearly at right angles to the axis of the skull. The audital bullae seem small as in fatuus. The upper incisors, while not quite so narrow as in typical fatuus, are not so broad as in cooperi, and the same is true of the lower incisors. Altogether, the skull is much more as in the smaller form." This conclusion is in accord with that reached by B. H. Dutcher, who records a specimen from Mt. Katahdin " that seems, on comparison with material in the Biological Survey Col-(38)— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 30, 1917. (159)
BioStor
