by ee ae a 
A BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL 
VOL. IV. JANUARY, 1894. No. 4. 
NOTES ON A COLLECTION OF MAMMAIS FROM 
THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS. 
BY WILLIAM W. PRICE. 
In the summer of 1892 the writer made a trip into the higher 
Sierra Nevada Mountains, during which he secured for the 
Leland Stanford Jr. University the small collection of mammals 
on which the following notes are based. The collecting was 
done chiefly in three different localities; namely, at Red Point 
and at Summit Station, in Placer County, and on Mount Tallac, 
in El Dorado County. 
The topography of the country, hastily sketched, is as follows: 
Red Point is at an altitude of about 4500 feet, on the Forest Hill 
Divide—a tongue of land lying between the North and Middle 
Forks of the American River. Heavy forests of sugar and 
yellow pines, fir, spruce, and cedar clothe the ridges; the under- 
growth is composed chiefly of several species of Ceanothus, 
manzanita, and scrub oak. 
The open, brushy tracts on the top of the ridge are the favorite 
haunts of the long-eared chipmunk, 7Zamias macrorhabdotes. 
_ The California ground squirrel, Spermophilus grammurus beecheyt, 
which has here about reached its vertical limit, is common on 
rocky hillsides. Two other squirrels, the California gray 
squirrel, Sciurus fossor, and the California chickaree, Scurus 
hudsonius californicus, are found everywhere in the timber 
though preferring deep hillside forests. 
Summit Station, the highest point on the Central Pacific 
Railroad, is about 7ooo feet above the sea. On the east 
the mountains descend abruptly toward Donner Lake, 
but westward the slope is much more gradual. A broad, 
grassy valley, the head waters of the Yuba etn takes its rise 
189 
ecember 21, 
