888 mono<;i:ai'iis of north American rodentia. 



be no doubt of its identity with Mr. Xantus's specimen above described. The 

 only discrepancies consist in Audubon and Bachnaan's specimen being a little 

 smaller than I lie preseni one, and (he (ail is represented as being relatively a 

 Little longer and the color of the ventral surface of the body a little lighter, 

 but in every other detail of structure and coloration there is the closest 

 agreement. Although evidently a true Spermophile, in all probability ref- 

 erable to the subgenus Otospcrmophilus, the absence of the skull renders it 

 impossible to refer it to any particular section of the genus Spermophilus. 



In 1827, Major Hamilton-Smith, in Griffith's Cuvier's Animal Kingdom 

 (vol. iii, p. 190), described and figured a " Sciurus lewisii", said to have been 



based on a specimen in " Mr. Peal's Museum in Philadelphia brought 



there by the American Missouri travellers, Messrs. Lewis and Clarke", the 

 name being given in honor of Captain Lewis. The figure and description 

 strongly recall the present species.* The tail is similarly barred transversely 

 (but the bars are fewer and broader), and the general color seems to resem- 

 ble that of the Spermophilus annulatus of Audubon and Bach'man. Professor 

 Baird has very doubtfully referred the Sciurus lewisito Sciurus "ludovicianus y , 

 supposing that the barring of the tail might have been due to a twisting of 

 that member. He expresses himself as at a loss to account for the absence 

 of red in the tail, but says that unless it be assignable to this species he can- 

 not refer it to any known North American species. If, however, Hamilton- 

 Smith's figure he considered as at all trustworthy, his " Lewis's Squirrel" 

 bears a much nearer resemblance to the Spermophilus annulatus than to any 

 other known species of Sciurida. If really to be referred to this, the speci- 

 men was probably not "brought to Philadelphia" by Lewis and Clarke, hut 

 was doubtless derived from some wholly different source. 



Hamilton-Smith traces a resemblance between his animal and the Sciurus 

 annulatus described in 1822 by Destnarest from a specimen in the Paris 



* The description is as follows : — " Lnvh'a Squirrel has the upper part of the head, neck, shoulders, 

 fore arms, to the articulation of the arm, backs flanks [sic], the posterior moiety of the thighs, and a 

 band round the belly, of ochre; gray colour ; all the under parts, the inside of the limbs, and the pans 

 are pure ochrey ; tin- ears an- small, round, and far back ; the eyes are black and surrounded with the 

 same colour as the back ; tin- nostrils open at the extremity of the muzzle, forming a denuded black 

 snout, tin- upper lip is white, and the whiskers very long ; (he tail is very beautiful, extremely thick 01 

 bushy, cylindrical and annotated, with seven black and six white bauds, with tho termination black." 

 They add. — " This appears to be the x<iiiriix annulatus, described by M. Desmarest, Encycloptfdie Milhodiqne, 

 article Vammalogie, from a Bpecimen in the museum at Paris, whose habitat is unknown. His specific 

 characters, however, an- Eur of a bright greenish-gray above, wit lion t lateral white bands, white under- 

 neath, tail longer than the body, round, annotated, black and white : of the t-izc of the Palm Squirrel. 

 These differences of colour may lie sufficiently accounted for, to reconcile the probability of the identity 

 of the species of these t wo specimens." 



