1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pocket-mouse

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34607201911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 21 — Pocket-mouse

POCKET-MOUSE, the name of a number of small jerboa-like, chiefly North American rodents belonging to the family Geomyidae, and constituting the genus Perognathus and Heteromys. They are nearly allied to the American kangaroo-rats (see Kangaroo-Rat, but differ in having rooted molar teeth. The typical pocket-mouse P. fasciatus, which is a native of Montana, Missouri, and Wyoming, is a sandy-coloured rodent marked with black lines above and with white beneath, and measuring about 6 in. in length, this length being equally divided between the head and body and the tail. (See Rodentia.)