VOL. X, pp. 135-138 DECEMBER 28, 1896 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THK 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



SOME NEW MAMMALS FROM INDIAN TERRITORY 

 AND MISSOURI. 



BY OUTRAM BANGS. 



In the summer of 1896 Mr. Thaddeus Surber undertook a col 

 lecting trip to Indian Territory in the interests of the Bangs 

 collection. After spending a short time in Missouri he went to 

 Stilwell, in the Cherokee Nation, at the northwest part of the 

 Boston Mountains. The country was suffering from an un 

 precedented drought and all mammals were extremely hard to 

 find. Mr. Surber was also handicapped by the unfriendliness of 

 the Indians, who absolutely refused to help him in any way. 

 He had collected but a few days when he was taken ill with an 

 extremely malignant form of malaria, which compelled him to 

 abandon the work. 



The Boston Mountains about Stilwell rise to a height of 2,500 

 feet (estimated), and are closed in by ranges of low lying hills, 

 some 250 or 300 feet higher than the intervening narrow valleys 

 of rich land. Beyond the hills west of Stilwell stretches a barren 

 prairie that is said to have been formerly forest-covered. On 

 the sides of the mountains are found black walnut, white oak, 

 red oak, black jack, etc., but no pines. The mountains all top 

 off in cliffs from five to fifty feet high, composed of sandstone 

 or bastard limestone, in which there are many caves. 



The material collected at Stilwell, while small in number of 

 specimens, is of great interest. Besides the new forms here de 

 scribed, Mr. Surber got only three species of mammals the 

 raccoon, Procyon lotor ; the southern gray squirrel, Sciurus caro- 

 linensis, and the plains wood rat, Neotoma baileyi. 



25 BIOL. Soc. WASH., Voi,. X, 1896 (135) 



