Vol. X, pp. 145-167 December 28, 1896 



PROCEEDINGS 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



\^. 



A REVIEW OF THE SQUIRRELS OF EASTERN NORTH 



AMERICA. 



BY OUTRAM BANGS. 



The present paper is intended to review brief! 3^ all the squirrels 

 of the genera Sciurus and Sciuropterus known to occur in North 

 America east of the great plains. It is based principally on 

 material in the collection of E. A. and 0. Bangs, but in addition 

 to this my friends, Dr. C. Hart INIerriam, Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, 

 Jr., and Mr. Samuel N. Rhoads, have kindly lent me specimens 

 from many localities of special interest. I have also, through 

 the kindness of Mr. William Brewster, examined all the skins 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. 



The last important work on our squirrels was Dr. J. A. Allen's 

 Monograph of the Sciuridse published in 1877. As in the light 

 of more modern material some of the conclusions reached in 

 that work must be changed and a few new forms added, it seems 

 well to review the whole group, mapping out so far as possible 

 the geographic distribution of each species and subspecies. 



While all our squirrels tend to break off very readily into 

 geographic forms, the gray squirrel (Sciurus caroUnensis) presents 

 the most remarkable case, since it is imiDOSsible to recognize less 

 than five races of this most protean species. 



Tliere is an immense range of individual color variation in 

 some of the species, particularly in the fox squirrels. The north- 

 ern gray squirrel varies much and is so subject to melanism in 

 certain localities that the bhxck phase is commoner than the 

 gray. In such localities all sorts of strangely colored partially 



ii7— Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. X, 189G (145) 



