The family Heteromyidae was defined by Wood (1935:81) essentially as follows: Cheek teeth brachydont to hypsodont and even rootless; usually six cusps per molar, three on each loph; enamel rarely divided into two plates, never reduced to one; skull light, thin and papery; mastoids inflated, mastoidal breadth often greatest, never appreciably less than zygomatic breadth; interorbital space wider than rostrum; palate nearly horizontal and little if any below level of zygomata; nasals extended beyond incisors; zygomata slender, with greatly reduced malar, almost, or quite, abutting against tympanic; frontals and parietals broad, with latter reaching, or nearly reaching, orbits; frontal trapezoidal; parietal quadrate, to pentagonal or triangular; interparietal primitively large, secondarily reduced; squamosal mostly or entirely confined to orbit; tympanic vesicular and inflated, in some forms highly inflated; mastoids inflated and bullous, reaching top of skull, and forming part of occipital surface; occipitals contracted and limited in area on occiput, but extending onto dorsum of skull; coronoid processes small, inclined caudad and lying below level of condyle; jaw small and weak with large, everted angle; tail as long as, or longer than, head and body; claws of manus elongate, fossorial, but forelimb slender; pelage usually coarse and frequently spinose; ears and eyes large; body murine in form; locomotion in many forms saltatorial. This characterization of the family includes all of the members of the subfamilies Perognathinae, Heteromyinae and Dipodomyinae as well as the genus _Microdipodops_ which I am disinclined to place with any of the three subfamilies. Apparently it is more closely related to the subfamily Perognathinae. The subfamily Dipodomyinae, which contains the genera _Dipodomys_, _Prodipodomys_ and _Cupidinimus_, might be characterized after Coues' (1875) original description of the subfamily as follows: Cheek teeth progressively hypsodont, in _Dipodomys_ becoming ever-growing; enamel progressively interrupted, eventually reduced to anterior and posterior plates; upper and lower third molars reduced in size; tooth pattern rapidly destroyed, leaving only an enamel oval; upper incisors smooth (some fossils) or grooved (living forms); progressive expansion of the auditory bullae and increase in saltatorial ability; pterygoid fossa double; calcaneal-navicular or even calcaneal-cuneiform articulation; tail tufted. Owing to the fact that so little paleontological material is known and because even that is fragile and not easily accessible for study, knowledge of the fossil representatives has been drawn primarily from the literature, especially from Wood's (1935) account.