WEST VIRGINIA MAMMALS — KELLOGG 461 



By an act of the Virginia Assembly in 1769, each head of family- 

 was required to produce "per tithe the heads of five squirrels or 

 crowns" (Morton, 1910, p. 357). 



Barbour Couni?y: Sugar Creek, 5 miles east of Philippi, 1; Bills Creek, 7 miles 



east of Philippi, 1. 

 Cabell County: 4 miles east of Huntington, 2; 13 miles east of Huntington, 1. 

 Greenbrier County: Frankford, 4; Ronceverte, 1; White Sulphur Springs, 1. 

 Pendleton County: Franklin, 1. 

 Pocahontas County: Travellers Repose, 3; Williams River, 12 miles west of 



Marlinton, altitude 3,200 feet, 8, 



SaURUS NIGER NEGLECTUS (Gray) 



Northern Fox Squirrel 



This large, long-tailed squirrel seems to be less adaptable than the 

 gray squirrel to the changing conditions brought on by the settlement 

 of the wooded areas of the East. In West Virginia it now survives 

 in the heavily wooded and sparsely settled higher altitudes of the 

 Allegheny Mountains. On Spruce Knob, in Pendleton County, the 

 fox squirrel is called the highland squirrel. A fox squirrel was seen 

 by W. M. Perrygo at an elevation of 4,600 feet on Albemarle Ridge, 

 east of Travellers Repose. On this area it is reported that these 

 squirrels feed largely on chestnuts during the fall and winter months. 



For many years numbers of fox squirrels were shipped to Center 

 Market in Washington, D. C, from points in western Vu'ginia and 

 from eastern West Virginia. There are two specimens in the Na- 

 tional Museum collection labeled merely West Virginia that were 

 purchased at this market, one (no. 16315) bought by WilHam Palmer 

 on October 10, 1888, and the other (no. 22752) by Morris M. Green 

 on December 12, 1888. Another specimen (no. 107620), purchased 

 at the same market during January 1895, is labeled Hightown, Va., 

 a locality in Highland County close to the W^est Virginia boundary. 



In 1896 Thaddeus Surber collected for Outram Bangs three adult 

 fox squirrels at White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County. One 

 of them became the type of a new race, Sciurus ludovicianus vicinus 

 Bangs. Gray's name (applied to a Delaware specimen) is older and 

 therefore has precedence. 



A series of 15 fox squirrels collected by Thaddeus Surber during 

 October 1897 at Lewisburg illustrates the color variation in the 

 pelage. The upperparts of some of these specimens are rather light 

 in color. A specimen (no. 114012) taken in Hampshire County, 

 however, has lighter gray upperparts than any of the Lewisburg 

 specimens, the subapical band on the black-tipped hairs being faded 

 to a light clay color and the other hairs broadly tipped with light 

 gray. The feet of this specimen are whitish. The feet of the Lewis- 

 burg specimens vary from light ferruginous to a pale yellowish gray 

 or dingy white. On one squirrel (no. 91499) the thighs, hindfeet. 



