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(1911:148) provided habitat details on those specimens (which included the specimen
<br /> which later would be designated by Krutzsch, 1954, as the holotype of Zapus
<br /> hudsonius preblet), as follows: "In July, 1895, Preble trapped two specimens in a dense
<br /> growth of weeds along an irrigating ditch. . . ." Reference to Preble's original field notes
<br /> (R. D. Fisher, National Museum of Natural History, personal communication) provided
<br /> no further detail on tl-.ase captures.
<br /> The first citation of an actual specimen of the meadow jumping mouse in Boulder
<br /> County was by Cockerell et al. (1914), who reported as Zapus princeps a specimen
<br /> collected by D. M. Andrews) from 5 mi. E Boulder(presumably UCM 503). Fortunately,
<br /> that specimen still exists and it is, in fact, Zapus hudsonius, as would be expected on
<br /> geographic and ecological grounds. It was, by the way, examination of that and other
<br /> historic specimens in the University of Colorado Museum that led researchers (e. g.,
<br /> Compton, 1992, Compton and Hugie, 1993) to focus on City of Boulder Open Space
<br /> lands as remnant habitat for the meadow jumping mouse.
<br /> As a basis for a zoogeographic analysis of the Coloradan mammalian fauna, Armstrong
<br /> (1972) examined museum specimens to detail geographic distributions. He examined
<br /> 37 specimens of Z hudsonius from Colorado, 30 (81 percent) of them from Boulder
<br /> County, thanks to extensive collecting by R. T. Young. Unfortunately, however, Young's
<br /> specimens mostly were labeled simply "Boulder," and apparently no field notes exist (T.
<br /> R. Ryon, personal communication) making precise relocation of his trapping localities
<br /> impossible. Other Coloradan localities compiled by Armstrong (1972) all were along the
<br /> Front Range Corridor, in Larimer, Weld, Adams, Arapahoe, Denver, and Jefferson
<br /> counties.
<br /> Armstrong (1972) failed to note the description by Warren (1942:241) of a possible
<br /> observation of Zapus hudsonius in El Paso County: "September first, 1912, 1 (Warren]
<br /> found in Monument Valley Park, Colorado Springs, a very young jumping mouse, so
<br /> very small that some of the characteristics of these mice did not appear at all. . . ."
<br /> Warren's field notes are archived in the University of Colorado Museum (UCM).
<br /> Unfortunately, however, the volume of notes from 1912 appears to have been
<br /> misplaced (perhaps before Warren's collection of mammals and accompanying notes
<br /> and photographs was transferred to UCM in the late 1960s); at any rate, it could not be
<br /> found in December 1995 or in April 1996. Apparently, no specimen was preserved
<br /> from Monument Valley Park, but recent work in El Paso County, especially along
<br /> Monument Creek at the U. S. Air Force Academy (J. Corn, A. Ellingson, C. Pague,
<br /> personal communications), suggests that this could have been a meadow jumping
<br /> mouse, which would make Warren's the first report of the species south of the Palmer
<br /> Divide.
<br /> Jones and Jones (1985) reported Zapus hudsonius from El Paso County north of
<br /> Colorado Springs, a locality that has been determined to be SE of Monument (NE 1/4
<br /> sec. 13, T. 11 S, R. 67 W—A. Ellingson, personal communication).
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