SQUIRRELS OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA I9 



by F. Cuvier in 1829. During the succeeding decade a few 

 species were described, and in 1839 Bachman^ published sev- 

 eral additional species from Mexico. The first general enumera- 

 tion of Tropical American squirrels appeared in 1842 in Les- 

 son's ' Nouveau Tableau du Regne Animal,' in which seven 

 species were mentioned from the region under consideration. 

 During the next 25 years Wagner, Schinz, Peters, and Gray 

 described a few species, Audubon and Bachman gave ac- 

 counts of several in their ' Quadrupeds of North America ' 

 (1851-54), and Bairdin 1857 referred briefly to the Mexican and 

 Central American species in his ' Mammals of North America.' 

 The year 1867 was marked by the publication of two papers, 

 Fitzinger's ' Natiirliche Anordnung der Nagethiere,'^ which 

 included 10 species and subspecies of squirrels from Tropical 

 North America ; and, a few months later, Gray's ' Synopsis 

 of Species of American Squirrels in the Collection of the 

 British Museum.'^ The latter paper recognized 18 species and 

 varieties north of Panama, several of which were supposed to 

 be new, and was the first formal attempt to revise the Neotrop- 

 ical squirrels. Gray paid little attention to the work of pre- 

 vious authors and consequently renamed a number of species. 

 His descriptions were poor, the synonymy badly involved, and 

 some of the species were given impossible ranges. Dr. J. 

 A. Allen, in revising the group in 1877,* not only had the hope- 

 less task of untangling Gray's results with the scanty material 

 afforded by the museums in the United States, but was further 

 handicapped by the prevailing tendency of the time to lump 

 species, and as a consequence did not clear the ground. In the 

 following year, 1878, Alston published a paper ' On the Squir- 

 rels of the Neotropical Region,'^ based on an examination of 

 series in the Berlin, Paris, and British museums, with additional 

 specimens sent him by Dr. Allen. Alston states that this 

 material included the types of forty-one nominal species. In 

 this revision 7 species were recognized as living within the limits 



^ Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., Ill, p. 334, 1839. 



^ Sitzungsber. Akad. Wiss. Wien. math.-nat. CI., Iv, pp. 474-480. July, 1867. 



•''Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Ser., XX, pp. 415-434. October, 1867. 



*Mon. N.Am. Rodentia, 1877. 



*Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1878, pp. 656-670. 



