I 



■ i I ll'.U } 



894 



MONOUHAPUS OP NOllTU AMEltlOAN RODKNTIA. 



Um^ 



it is variously referred to incidontally as the "Petit Cliien", "Prairie Dog", 

 " Burking Squirrel'', and " Burrowing Squirrel", and is described at length 

 in volume ii (p. 175) under the name "Barking Squirrel". In Gass's Narra- 

 tive of the same expedition, jiublished in 1807, it is briefly referred to as the 

 "Prairie Dog". Pike, in his account of his travels on the Missouri and 

 Arkansas Rivers, in 1805 and 180G (published in 1810), also refers to it as 

 the " Wishtonvvish'', or "Prairie Squirrel", and gives much information 

 respecting its habits. To the animal described under the name " Barking 

 Squirrel", in the second volume of the "Biddle- Allen" narrative of the Lewis 

 and Clarke expedition, Ord, in 1815, gave the name Arctomys ludcnyicianus, 

 basing the name on Lewis and Clarke's description. Say, in 1823, under 

 the same name, gave a somewhat fuller account of its habits, and described 

 the s[)ecies from a specimen brought from the Upper Missouri, many years 

 before, l)y Lewis and Clarke. In the mean time, Rafinesque, in 1817, 

 renamed the Barking Squirrel of Lewis and Clarke {^.Arctomys ludovicianus 

 of Ord and Say) Cynomys socialis, basing both the genus and ihe species on 

 Lewis and Clarke's description. Rafinesque, in the same paper, also gave 

 the name " Cynofnys? grisea" to Lewis and Clarke's "Petit Chicn" of the 

 Upper Missouri, which is identical with their "Prairie Dog" and "Barking 

 Squirrel". Later, in 1825, Harlan, while recognizing the Arctomys ludooicia- 

 wM.vof Ord and Say, and referring to it the Prairie Dog of Lewis and Clarke, 

 gave the name Arctomys latrans to Lewis and Clarke's Barking Squirrel of 

 "the plains of the Missouri", thus adding another nominal species to the two 

 introduced by Rafinesque. Neither Rafinesque's names nor that proposed 

 by Harlan have received recognition except in the works of a few foreign 

 compilers. 



As already shown, this species was first met with by Lewis and Clarke, 

 during their journey up the Missouri River in 1804, while Pike met with it 

 tiie following year on the Arkansas River. The first published reference to 

 it appears to have been made by Glass, in 1807, who gives, however, no 

 information of importance respecting it. Pike, in 1810, gave a more detailed 

 account of its habits, while Say, in 182i3, further contributed to its biography 

 and gave of it the first formal scientific description. It has since been well 

 described by various authors, and may be considered as one of the best 

 known o( our smaller Mammals. It figures largely in the accounts of all 



