194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1896. 



but I was frequently informed they were often seen in districts 

 where none appeared during my visit. I saw them at Johnson City, 

 Greenville and Nashville, and heard one or two while riding 

 through the woods in Obion Co., near Samburg. They are to be 

 found near the Springs at Raleigh and on the road from Raleigh to 

 Bartlett. None were seen at Chattanooga or Knoxville, nor on the 

 Cumberland plateau. Two specimens from Roan Mountain are 

 precisely like some of my skins from southern New Jersey. 



Mr. Miles speaks of them near Brownsville as being " identical 

 with the chipmunk of Virginia in color, though, I think, larger 

 and not near so plentiful. * * * * I see five or. six every sum- 

 mer." The Messrs. Brimley of Raleigh, N. C, record two speci- 

 mens taken at Warner, Hickman Co., Tenn., in November and De- 

 cember, indicating that the hibernation of this animal in that lati- 

 tude is of short and irregular duration. 



Genus SCIHRUS Linnaeus. 



23. Sciurus niger ludovicianus (Custis). Western Fox Squirrel. 



We do not find this species numerous except in the heavily tim- 

 bered bottoms of West Tennessee, more especially west of the Ten- 

 nessee River in the direct drainage of the Mississippi. 



A very interesting account of this species, as observed in Hay- 

 wood and Lauderdale Counties by my veteran friend and sports- 

 man, B. C. Miles, is too valuable to be lost, and with some emen- 

 dations, I give it here : " The Fox or Red Squirrel is the largest 

 of all the tribe and varies considerably in size in diflferent neighbor- 

 hoods. Wherever food to his liking is found, there he is, and al- 

 ways a glutton, putting in his whole time eating, drinking, or snooz- 

 ing on a cozy limb, in such a position that he attracts attention 

 neither of the hunter below nor of the hawk above. I am certain I 

 have seen him clean up a quart of mulberries in a half-day and not 

 move ten feet during the time, nor give utterance to a single sound. 

 Early in the morning and late in the evening he chatters much and can 

 even condescend to be a little gay in the mating season. I doubt his 

 ever migrating, as do the gray and black, though an excursion of 

 a mile from home through cultivated fields and small timber is no 

 unusual tramp for the gentleman. 



" He is a denizen of big timber always : more at home in the 

 gums and cypresses of our swamps than elsewhere, though he is not 

 infrequently found in the most unexpected places, on the hills near 



