442 Squirrels of B. America. 



to be met with on the hiijliest mountains. The most southern 

 locality to which we have traced it, is a high peak called the 

 Black mountain, in Buncombe county, N. Carolina. The woods 

 growing in that elevated situation are in some places wholly com- 

 posed of balsam-fir trees, (Abies balsamea,) on the cones of which 

 these squirrels feed. There this little animal is quite common, 

 and has received a new English name, viz., that of " Mountain 

 boomer." Toward the west we have traced it to the mountains 

 of Tennessee ; beyond the Rocky mountains, it does not exist. In 

 the Russian settlements on the Western coast, it is replaced by 

 the Downy Squirrel, [Sc. lanugmosus.) In the vicinity of Colum- 

 bia, and for several hundred miles alonof the mountains South of 

 that river, by Richardson's Columbian squirrel ; and in the 

 mountainous regions bordering on California, by another small 

 species much resembling it, which we hope, hereafter, to present 

 to our readers. 



ft 



" Although this species from its numbers and familiarity, as well 

 as from its general diftusion, has been longer known than any 

 other of our squirrels, and has been very frequently described, it 

 has, with few exceptions, retained its name of Hudsonius. Erx- 

 LEBEN supposed it to be only a variety of the common squirrel, 

 >S^. vulgaris, of Europe, and so describes it. The Sciurus Hudso- 

 nius of Gmelin is a flying squirrel, (Pterom^s sabrinus,) and the 

 Carolina gray squirrel, which in Shaw's General Zoology, vol. ii., 

 p. 141, is given as a variety of Sciurus Hudsonius, is our own 

 species, (Sc. Carolinensis). This species was unknown to Lin- 

 naeus. Pallas appears to have been the first author, who gave 

 the specific name oi Hudsonius, (see Pall. Glir. p. 377, a. d. 1786, 

 and Gmelin, in 1788, adopted his name.) 



"In examining the form, and inquiring into the habits of this 

 species ; we cannot but observe a slight approach toTAMiAs, and a 

 more distant one to Spermophilus. Its ears are placed farther back 

 than in the squirrels generally, its tail is only sub-distichous, and 

 withal it often digs its own burrow, and lives indiscriminately in 

 the ground and on trees. In all these particulars it appears, in 

 connexion with the Downy squirrel, [Sc. lanuginosus,) to form a 

 connecting link between SeiURUs and Tamias. It has, however, 

 no cheek pouches, and does not carry its food in its cheeks in the 

 manner of the Tami.e and Spermophili, but between its front 

 teeth, like the rest of the squirrels." 



