, Washington.

CLETHRIONOMYS OCCIDENTALIS OBSCURUS (Merriam).

1897. _Evotomys obscurus_ Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington,
11:72, April 21, type from Prospect, 2600 ft., upper Rogue
River Valley, Jackson County, Oregon.

1933. _Clethrionomys mazama obscurus_, Grinnell, Univ.
California Publ. Zool., 40:185, September 26.

1936. _Clethrionomys californicus obscurus_, Bailey, N. Amer.
Fauna, 55:192, August 29.

Clethrionomys gapperi pallescens, new name

1940. _Clethrionomys gapperi rufescens_ R. W. Smith, Amer. Midland
Nat., 24:233, July, type from Wolfville, Kings County, Nova Scotia
(_nec Arvicola rufescens_ de Selys Longchamps, 1836, from
Longchamps-sur-Ger, Belgium).

The name _rufescens_, as applied by R. W. Smith (Amer. Midland Nat.,
24:233, July, 1940) to the red-backed mouse of Nova Scotia, seems to be
unavailable under the rules of the International Code of Zoological
Nomenclature, since it is a homonym of _Arvicola rufescens_ de Selys
Longchamps, 1836, which in turn is a synonym of _Clethrionomys
glareolus glareolus_ Schreber, 1780 (Ellerman and Morrison-Scott,
Checklist of Palaearctic and Indian Mammals, 1758 to 1946, p. 663,
November 19, 1951).

Clethrionomys gapperi phaeus (Swarth)

1911. _Evotomys phaeus_ Swarth, Univ. California Publ. Zool.,
7:127, January 12, type from Marten Arm, Boca de Quadra, Alaska.

When Swarth (_loc. cit._) named the red-backed mouse of the mainland of
southern Alaska as a new subspecies, he characterized it as "Size
rather large. Differs from _E._ [= _Clethrionomys_] _wrangeli_, nearest
it geographically, in cranial characters and in much longer tail; from
_E. caurinus_, the species to the southward in British Columbia, in
larger size and longer tail." He remarked (_loc. cit._): "I had
supposed that the red-backed mouse occurring on the mainland coast of
this region would prove to be _E. wrangeli_, but the latter appears to
be purely an insular species. I have had no specimens of that race for
comparison, but the _Evotomys_ secured differ so widely from it in all
the essential peculiarities of the species as given in the published
descriptions that there seems little doubt of their belonging to a
different species. _Wrangeli_ has a short tail, less than twice as long
as the hind foot--in adults of _phaeus_ the tail is invariably more
than twice the length of the foot, fre