HAPLODONTIDZ—HISTORY AND HABITS OF II. RUFUS. 591 
The Sewellel was discovered* in 1805 or 1806 by the famous travellers 
Lewis and Clarke, whose account first appeared in 1814, in the Biddle-Allen 
narrative of their expedition (2 vols., 8vo, Philadelphia, Bradford and Ins- 
keep), and nearly simultaneously in the Rees English edition of the same date 
(1 vol., 4to, Londonf). The notice by these authors runs as follows :— 
“Sewellel is a name given by the natives to a small animal found in the 
timbered country on this [¢. e. Pacific] coast. It is more abundant in the 
neighbourhood of the great Falls and rapids of the Columbia, than on the coast, 
which we inhabit. 
“The natives make great use of the skins of this animal in forming their 
robes, which they dress with the fur on, and attach them together with sinews 
of the elk or deer: the skin, when dressed, is from fourteen to eighteen 
inches long and from seven to nine in width; the tail is always separated 
from the skin by the natives in making their robes.t{ This animal mounts.a 
tree,} and burrows in the ground, precisely like a squirrel:|| [Description 
here follows] .... Captain Lewis offered considerable rewards to the 
Indians, but was never able to procure one of these animals alive.” (Queted 
from text of the London 4to ed.) 
Upon the Sewellel of Lewis and Clarke was actually and entirely based 
the Anisonyx rufa of Rafinesque, who also gave names to others of the species 
first described under vernacular names by these travellers. I have already 
discussed the bearing of the term Anisonyx, and need not repeat that it is 
a synonym of Cynomys, Raf., whose ‘‘Anisonyx brachiura” 
‘ Y YS, ’ A 
was based upon 
the “Burrowing Squirrel” of Lewis and Clarke, as “ Anisonyx rufa” was upon 
their Sewellel. Notwithstanding that the term was invented upon an errone- 
ous interpretation of the meaning of Lewis and Clarke, and was applied to 
two animals of widely different genera (Cynomys and Haplodon), it seems 
that Rafinesque’s specific term rufa, being based exclusively upon the Sew- 
*Sir John Richardson is inclined to think that a passage in a much earlier work (Mackenzie’s 
Voy. to the Pacific, &c., p. 314) refers to the Sewellel. “Sir Alexander Mackenzie saw many animals, 
which he terms ‘moles’, on the banks of a small stream near the sources of the Columbia; but as we are 
led to infer, from the way in which he speaks of them, that they were in numbers above ground, | am 
inclined to think that they were sewellels, belonging to the genus aplodontia . . . “—(n. Bor.-Am. i, 
1829, p. 11.) 
t For “An account of the various publications relating to the Travels of Lewis and Clarke, with 
a commentary on the Zoological Results of their Expedition”, prepared by the present writer, see Bull. 
U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, No. 6, 2d ser., pp. 417-444 (8vo, Washing- 
ton, Government. Printing Office, February 8, 1876). 
{ But ef. Sir John Richardson, as quoted beyond. 
§ Doubtless an erroneous statement, as supposed by Audubon and Bachman, and later by Gibbs 
and Suckley. 
|| The “ burrowing squirrel” of Lewis and Clarke was a-Cynomys. 
