152 Bangs — The Squirrels of Eastern North America. 



Catesby worked for the greater part of liis stay in this country in a 

 region in whicli the northern fox squirrel is unknown and in which the 

 southern fox squirrel is abundant. Catesby spent one year on the coast, 

 tl;en went up the Savannah River to Fort Moore, about half way from 

 the source of the river to the sea. It is true he made several expeditions 

 into the mountains, and possibly may have seen the northern fox squirrel 

 on some of these trips,* but if he did, he makes no mention of any such 

 animal. He distinctly places his gray fox squirrel as an inhabitant of the 

 coast region (a region wholly tenanted by the southern fox squirrel) by 

 his remark that it, with the black fox squirrel, does great harm to the 

 maize and pulse plantations of Virginia and Carolina (under descriptions 

 of the two fox squirrels), he having previously stated that the inhabited 

 portion of the country extended only sixty miles back from the coast 

 (p. VIII, preface). Catesby's figure and description of the gray fox 

 squirrel leave much to be desired, but one point upon which he was very 

 careful in all his accounts of birds, mammals, and reptiles was size, and 

 he distinctly states the gray and black fox squirrels to have been of about 

 the same size (under description of black fox squirrel. Vol. II, p. 73). 

 Judging by his work on other animals, Catesby would never have made 

 such an assertion if he were describing the northern fox squirrel, an 

 animal much smaller than the southern fox squirrel. Both on geo- 

 graphical and technical grounds it is impossible that Catesby's gray fox 

 squirrel could have been intended for the northern fox squirrel, and his 

 gray fox squirrel resolves itself into nothing more than the light colored 

 phase of the southern fox squirrel, while his ])lack fox squirrel is the 

 black phase of the same species. 



The black or nearly black individuals of the southern fox squirrel are 

 much rarer than the light-colored ones, the proportion being about seven 

 to one in favor of the light ones, and when the two extremes are com- 

 pared they certainly look like very different animals, and are supposed so 

 to be to this day by most southern squirrel-hunters. Catesby tells us that 

 at first he judged the two to be one species, but finally yielded to the 

 common notion and considered them distinct. (Under description of 

 black fox squirrel. ) 



A point of some interest is that Catesby does not mention the gray 

 squirrel [Scinnis carolinensis Gmelin) at all. It must certainly have been 

 an abundant animal all about him, and it is probable that he confused it 

 with the light-colored phase of the southern fox squirrel, perhaps think- 

 ing the ones he saw younger or smaller individuals of this kind. 



Kalm gives a short but accurate description of the gray squirrel (Scinrns 

 carolinensis), both as to size and color, as he saw it in Pennsylvania, and 

 his long account of its habits, etc., refers to this species alone, he making 

 no mention of any larger animal. 



From the composite Linmean species, Scluras ciiiereus, Gmelin, in 1788, 

 took out the southern gray squirrel and gave it the name Sciaras curo- 



* It is by no means certain that the northern fox squirrel occurs in the 

 southern Alleghanies. 



