Zo 
720 SCIURIDAE—CITELLUS 
Yorkshire, they caused much trouble in the kitchen garden, among the 
aviaries and poultry runs, and in woods of deciduous trees, and they 
also raided the gardens for small fruit. Two plantations of sycamores 
of about thirty years’ growth had scores of trees ruined or disfigured— 
the bark being peeled off the leaders and upper laterals. The verdict 
of another observer is that they are destructive in gardens; damage 
the foliage of wych elms and horse chestnuts; consume quantities of 
walnuts, apricots, and other fruit, and dig up crocus bulbs. Apparently 
they are not so destructive to fir trees as the native brown squirrel, but 
are inveterate destroyers of eggs and young birds. In the Zoological 
Gardens they have been observed taking birds’ eggs, or, if the young 
are hatched, they pull them out, or destroy the nests.” 
This species is now (November 1918) very common in parts of 
South Devon. Many individuals are to be seen in the Castle grounds 
at Exeter. According to Pocock, “it partially hibernates in London 
parks, or disappears for a few days in cold weather ” (art. “ Hibernation,” 
Encycl. Brit., 444). The same author states that males predominate in 
England (/’e/d, 27th Jan. 1912, 187). 
[GENUS CITELLUS. 
1816. CITELLUS, Oken, Lehrb. der Naturgesch. Th. iii., Abth. ii., 824, the genotype 
being Mus citellus, Linneeus ; Lichtenstein, 1825; J. A. Allen, Bull. Amer. Mus. 
Nat. Hist., 16, 1902, 375 ; Miller. 
1825. SPERMOPHILUS, F. Cuvier, Dents des Mammiféres, 160 (genotype Mus citellus, 
Linnzus) ; Blasius and most authors. 
The Sousliks, Spermophiles, or Pouched Marmots, as 
they are variously called, enjoy a wide distribution in the 
northern hemisphere and are probably of Asiatic origin. In 
the Old World they now range eastwards from Silesia, 
Bohemia, and Hungary, across Central Asia, but they are not 
known in Japan; southwards they are represented in Asia 
Minor, Palestine, and Persia, but do not reach the Himalayan 
region. In the Pleistocene period they occurred as far west 
as Denmark and the south of England. Part of the eastward 
recession of the genus has apparently taken place within the 
historic period, for Albertus Magnus observed Sousliks in 
the neighbourhood of Regensburg in the thirteenth century. 
In North America, Sousliks are found at all altitudes (between 
sea-level and 10,000 feet in California), from the Pacific Coast 
