SCIURIDA—SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS VAR. YUCATANENSIS, 705 
The form above characterized as var. carolinensis is typically represented 
by Florida specimens. Specimens from Louisiana, however, are hardly dis- 
tinguishable from Florida ones. A specimen from Salt Creek, Kansas (No. 
3061, May 29, 1857), is not appreciably different. Specimens from the 
Carolinas, and as far north even on the coast as Washington, and as far north 
in the Mississippi Valley as Saint Louis, are nearer the southern form than 
they are to the northern. 
Var. YUCATANENSIS, 7. v. 
Yucatan Gray Squirrel. 
VARIETAL CHARS.— Size small; tail with hairs shorter than head and body. 
Intermediate in size between S. carolinensis (var. carolinensis) and S. hudsonius. 
Head and body 10.00; tail-vertebree 8.00; tail to end of hairs 9.75. Ears narrow 
and pointed, in winter somewhat tufted. Pelage coarse and harsh. Above, 
gray, with the middle of the back brownish; beneath, white; hairs of the tail 
ringed with white and black. 
The four specimens of this variety before me are all from Merida, 
Yucatan, and were collected by Dr. A. Schott in March, 1865. They present 
a remarkable degree of uniformity in coloration. Three are adult, the other 
about half-grown. Their general aspect is widely different from that of any 
form of S. carolinensis from the United States, but differs less from the New 
Leon specimens, referred doubtfully by Baird, in 1857, to S. carolinensis, 
The pelage is very coarse, harsh, and stiff; the sides are clear ashy-gray, 
unvaried with any shade of fulvous or rufous. The middle of the dorsal 
region is black and light yellowish-brown, the hairs being black at base and 
tip, with a broad subterminal bar of wood-brown. The tail is centrally white 
below, with a well-defined line of black on either side of the median line, 
traversing the middle of the basal white band; on either side of the central 
white area is a broad bar of black, succeeded by a broad terminal bar of 
white. Each hair is thus white, with an inner narrow bar of black and a 
broader outer one of the same color, with no shade of fulvous or rufous. 
The ears are much narrower and higher than in any United States form of 
carolinensis, and, with the coarse pelage, ashy-gray tints of the sides, and 
blackish hue of the back, varied with pale yellowish-brown, together with 
the small size, convey the impression of an animal specifically distinct from 
any other species of Sciwrus, and I am far from sure that it should not be so 
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