OCTOBER 109 



ed to the very brief list of in^esent day wild game 

 creatures in the state. 



In the Annals of loiva for January, 1905, Pro- 

 fessor Herbert Osborn has an interesting article 

 on Recently Extinct and Vanishing Animals of 

 Iowa.-'' Looking back over the years it may be 

 surprising if not shameful to recall how few wild 

 creatures, omitting insects, birds, snakes, and fish- 

 es, some of us have known in our home state. Of 

 course something depends on the sections with 

 wdiich one is familiar, something on opportunity 

 to be in the wilder regions of timber, prairie, and 

 water, by day and night, in season and out of sea- 

 son. Of quadrupeds other than those mentioned 

 in Professor Osborn 's article, the writer's Iowa 

 acquaintance is limited to humble, well-known 

 species — the cottontail, the woodchuck, the skunk, 

 field mice, squirrels, moles, muskrats, etc. In oth- 

 er groups among animals more or less familiar 

 have been turtles, snails, mussels, crayfish, bats — 

 and that curious creature known to boys as the 

 *'mud puppy." 



Of the rodents, the gray squirrels have of course 

 become familiar in late years in our parks and 

 resident streets, with the red squirrels apparently 

 less numerous or less widely distributed. To some 

 observers the flying squirrel is probably quite a 

 rarity. The writer has only once witnessed its 



20 See Appendix, Note 16. 



