550823-177

Kecgreres Plana

Fe dee a9 455
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

MUSEUM OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY
BERKELEY 4, CALIFORNIA

September 23, 1955

Mr. James W. Bee

Museum of Natural History
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas

Dear Jim:

I have been meaning to write to you to thank you for your
very good letter of May 16th regarding the occurrence of
microtgpnes near Umiat. -One man on my team (Dick Hansen) spent
about six weeks there, except for brief trips to Kotzebue and
the Saviovik River.

We obtained five species of microtines at Umiat, also a
shrew. The funny part of it was that Hansen had such a blasted
time trying to find Lemmus, whereas Dicrostonyx was found on the
river flat as well as on the higher ground far from the valley!
This, I take ib, is the reverse of your experience. finally,
some time in mid-July, not having gotten a Lemmus in any of our
standard sampling lines or in any spot-trapping, he Looked the
situation over and picked out what he considered the least likely
situations, desparation-sites, the most odd-ball habitats, or what
have you! And he got two the first nite!! In the remainder of
the summer, I believe one showed up in a standard line, but other-
wise, none. in other words, Lemmus was really scarce and .
Dicrostonyx definitely much more common. Otherwise, he found
M. oeconomus and Clethrionomys in fair numbers, and also got a
few M. miurus.

 

microtines also at Wainwright, Meade River, Half-moon Three
Ranch, and Barrow, in addition to the localities mentioned
above. Things are definitely in an upswing phase, and micro-
tines may hit a peak in 1956, and certainly by 1957. They
were most numerous at Meade River and Wainwright.

We got around a fair bit this summer, and collected

Hope your work on the arctic book is progressing. We all
look forward to seeing it.

Best regards,

   

A. Pitelka
FAP :rm

cc--i. Raymond Hall