SCIUMDJ3— SCIURUS HYrOPYERQUS. 747 



1 



end of hairs 12.75 to 1G.00. Color variable, tending strongly to both albi- 

 nistic and melanistic phases. Pelage coarse and stiff. 



Of the eleven specimens examined, two are almost wholly black ; three 

 are black, varied with fulvous, gray, and small unsymmetrical spots of white; 

 four others are black above, strongly varied with pale yellowish-brown, the 

 hairs being black at base and tip, with a broad ring of pale yellowish-brown. 

 The whole lower surface, including the inner side of the limbs, is rusty- 

 yellow. These vary little in color, mainly in respect to the brighter or paler 

 tint of the lower surface and amount of black above. 



The three specimens mottled with white (all from Guyaquil, Ecuador) 

 present a very peculiar appearance. One of them (No. 9014) has the pelage 

 everywhere black or dusky at the base, each hair generally with a long silvery 

 white tip, except on the lower part of the back, basal portion of the tail, and 

 hind limbs, where the white of the tips is replaced by yellowish-rusty. The 

 sides of the neck, the fore limbs, and portions of the ventral surface are more 

 faintly washed with a paler tint of the same. The ears and upper surface 

 of the head and of all the feet black, the head and feet faintly varied with 

 rusty. Cheeks, chin, and throat pale dusky yellowish-brown. Tail, except 

 basal sixth, black, with the hairs broadly white-tipped; at the base, the hairs 

 are rufous-tipped. Top of the head, anterior half of the dorsal surface, and 

 left fore leg with small pencil-like tufts of lengthened white hairs, showing 

 a tendency toward albinism. No. 9093 differs only in being blacker below, 

 with the rufous of the lower part of the back and basal portion of the tail 

 darker and more extended, and with more rufous below, and in having the 



• 



. tufts of white hair more numerous, nearly conlluent over the shoulders, and 

 appearing also on the breast, throat, and hind limbs. No. 9392 differs from 

 the last in lacking white patches on the head, in their larger size on the 

 middle of the back, in the right fore limb being wholly white from the elbow 

 to the toes, the latter being black only at the end, and in the rufous on the 

 rump and base of the tail being bright chestnut, or a little stronger even than 

 in No. 9093. No. 7019, from La Union, Central America, and three others 

 from Obispo, Panama, differ from all the preceding in being wholly pale 

 yellowish-rufous below and black above, where the hairs have a yellowish- 

 white subterminal zone, the general effect above being black, conspicuously 

 varied with yellowish-white. The posterior surface of the ears and the whole 

 feet and inner sides of limbs are like the ventral surface. The upper sur- 

 face of the head is yellowish-gray, sprinkled with black; the cheeks, chin, 



