778 MONOGRAPHS OP NORTH AMERICAN EODENTIA. 



Sciurus carolinensis. It* the specimen came really from North America, it. is 

 far more likely referable to tins species than to any other. 



Hamilton-Smith's description in full is as follows: — '"Clarke's Squirrel 



has the hack, upper part of the head and neck, cheeks ami tail, of a delicate 

 silver-gra} colour; the shoulders, flanks, belly, and posterior extremities, both 

 within and without, are white, with a slight ochery tint; on the sides of the 

 nose ami fore arms this tint deepens in intensity: the head is rather flattened 

 and thick, the ears small and round; the eyes black, and situate on the sides 

 of the head very far distant from each other, leaving a wide expanse of fore- 

 head ; the nostrils are semilunar in shape ; the upper lip is cleft, and there is 

 a hlack spot on the chin; the tail, which is flat and spreading, is very beau- 

 tiful, not so full near its insertion as toward the middle, and again diminishing 

 in breadth till it terminates in a point," — (Griffith's Cuvier's Animal King- 

 dom, vol. iii, pp. 189, 190.) 



5. — Sciurus socialis Wagner. 



Sciurus socialis Wagner, Abh. der matb.-pbys. Klasse der K. Bayer. Akad. d. Wisseusch. ii, 1837, 504, pi. 

 v ; Suppl. Scbreber's Siiuget. iii, 1843, 171. 



In 1837, Wagner described two species of Mexican Squirrels under the 

 names S. albipes (subsequently changed to 8. varius) and S. socialis, neither 

 of which I can satisfactorily determine. The first I have doubtfully referred 

 to Sciurus boothiee (see antea, p. 741), to some phases of which it seems to 

 have a close resemblance. The S. socialis, in its small size (length 8.50) and 

 short tail (somewhat shorter than the head and body), differs from anything 

 as vet known to me. It is perhaps based on an immature specimen, in which 

 case its small size would be readily accounted for. I have met with no 

 description of a species of this size from Mexico or Central America, except 

 S. tephrogastcr and S. astuans var. rufonigcr, from which it differs widely in 

 coloration. Its short tail and small size suggest Sciurus carolinensis, but its 

 rusty-yellow lower surface and tail rusty-red below, bordered with black and 

 edged with white, render its proper reference here wholly improbable. Pos- 

 sibly it may have been described from an immature example of S. aureigaster 

 (F. Cuv.=:S.ferruginiveritris Aud. and Bach.), to which I have been strongly 

 inclined to refer it. Its short tail is here the chief point of discrepancy. 



Wagner's later description is as follows: — 



"Sc. socialis Wagn. Da* geselligc Eichhorn. 

 " Sc. supra ex albo, cinereo et flavescente mixtns, subtus pallide flavus, 

 auriculus fulvis, pedibus albidis, vellere molli." .... 



