no Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. XL 



Type locality — Probably Lower Mississippi Valley. 

 Distribution — Mississippi Valley from Louisiana north to South 

 Dakota, southern Minnesota, central Wisconsin and southern 

 Michigan, eastward to western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. 

 Description — (Specimens from Fox Lake, Illinois, Oct. 31, 1906.) 

 General color above pale tawny brown finely mixed with darker 

 brown; tail mixed black and rufous brown, the ends of the hairs 

 tawny rufous; ears rufous brown; under parts pale tawny; four 

 cheek teeth (i premolar and 3 molars) on each side of upper and 

 lower jaws. 

 Remarks — No description of any one specimen will answer for this 

 species. The individual coloration is very variable, ranging from 

 black, part black and part tawny, to various mixtures of yellow 

 brown, rufous and tawny. The majority of specimens, however, 

 appear to be tawny gray-brown above and pale rufous or yellow 

 brown or pale orange brown on the under parts, with the hairs of the 

 tail mixed black and tawny rufous. 



In any pelage its large size, tawny or rufous tipped hairs on tail, 

 together with the presence of but four cheek teeth on each side of 

 both jaws, will generally distinguish it from other Squirrels which 

 occur within our limits. The Gray Squirrel, the only species with 

 which it may be confounded, usually has 5 cheek teeth (2 premolars 

 and 3 molars) on each side of the upper jaw, and the hairs on the 

 tail are tipped with white. 

 Measurements — The following are the average measurements of 1 2 

 specimens: Total length, 21 in. (533.5 mm.); tail vertebrae, 9.50 in. 

 (248.2 mm.); hind foot, 2.80 in. (73 mm.). 



In early days the Fox Squirrel was common in many localities 

 where it is now scarce, and few people at the present time have the 

 opportunities for observing its habits that were accorded the earlier 

 naturalists, therefore I can not do better than to quote Robert Kennicott 

 concerning the habits of the species in Illinois. He says: "The fox- 

 squirrel loves neither the low lands nor deep woods ; and, though found 

 living in the heavily timbered districts of Indiana and Illinois, it is less 

 at home in these than in more open ground. It is properly an inhabitant 

 of the timber of the prairie regions, and its favorite habitat is in the 'oak 

 openings' of Wisconsin and Michigan, and the groves or edges of the 

 belts of timber that skirt the streams watering the prairies of Illinois. 



". . . In the woods, the food of the fox-squirrel consists almost 

 entirely of the nuts and seeds of trees, with the buds of some species 

 including bass-wood, elm and maple. In autumn, it eats the fruit of 

 various thorns {CratcBgus); various berries are also eaten by it, and it 



