I thank Prof. Robert W. Wilson for his assistance in securing fossil geomyids for study, and those in charge of the paleontological collections at the California Institute of Technology, Prof. Bryan Patterson, formerly of the Field Museum of Natural History, and Prof. Claude W. Hibbard of the University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology. For their kindness in lending Recent species, I thank Mr. Hobart M. Van Duesen of the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. David H. Johnson of the U. S. National Museum, and Dr. Oliver P. Pearson of the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the late Colin C. Sanborn of the Field Museum of Natural History, and Profs. Emmet T. Hooper and William H. Burt of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. I am especially grateful to Prof. E. Raymond Hall for his guidance and helpful criticisms with the manuscript. For assistance with paleontological problems, I thank Drs. Robert W. Wilson and William A. Clemens. Several persons have offered helpful suggestions and encouragement in the course of my study. For assistance of various sorts I especially thank Drs. J. Knox Jones, Jr., Rollin H. Baker, A. Byron Leonard, Sydney Anderson, James S. Findley, Robert L. Packard, and Robert G. Anderson. Advice concerning the drawings of the dentitions was generously given by Mr. Victor Hogg, and the drawings were done by Mrs. Lorna Cordonnier under his direction and by Mr. Thomas H. Swearingen. For assistance with secretarial tasks I thank Valerie Stallings, Violet Gourd, Ann Machin, Toni Ward, Sheila Miller, and my wife, Danna Russell. TAXONOMIC CHARACTERS Morphological features of the fossils and their stratigraphic provenience provide the information upon which phylogenetic interpretations are based. Although the most critical sequences of the fossil record are lacking, and although the existing fossils are mostly fragmentary and therefore seldom furnish ideally suitable data for the interpretations that have been made, phylogenetic conclusions drawn from fossil materials are superior to those drawn on other bases. The especially relevant characters are those disclosing primary trends in the evolution of the modern assemblages. The higher systematic categories recognized in the following account are based primarily upon such characters. The most important characters found are in the teeth, although several structural changes in the lower jaw, especially those associated with the insertion of cranial musculature, are almost as important. _Prismatic Character of Molars_ In primitive geomyines the molar consisted of two columns united at their mid-points and forming a figure 8 or H-pattern (see Fig. 4B). Both labial and lingual re-entrant folds were formed between the two columns. The primitive pattern is retained in the premolars of all known Geomyinae. Therefore, in the earliest (Miocene) members of the subfamily, the pattern of the molars was essentially like that of the premolars.