SCIDRIDiE— ARCTOMY8 PltUINOSUS. 



927 



lost, and tlie species does not appear to have come under the notice of any 

 other naturalist." Gmelin's name Arcfomi/s pruinosus was based wholly on 

 Pennant's description of the Hoary Marmot, as are all subsequent references 

 to this species down to 1829, when Richardson added some further informa- 

 tion to the history of the species. He identified with it the Whistler of 

 Harmon, and says, if this reference is correctly made, "we may soon hope to 

 know more of it, for the traders who annually cross the Rocky Mountains 

 from Hudson's Bay to the Columbia and New Caledonia are well acquainted 

 with it." He later adds that " Mr. Macpherson describes one killed in the 

 month of May on the south branch of tiie Mackenzie as follows: — 'It was 

 27J inches long, of which the head 2J, and the tail 8J. It is, I think, of 

 the same genus with the Quebec Marmot. In the fore-teeth, and in tiie 

 shape of t!ie head and body, it resembles a beaver. Tiie hair, especially 

 about the neck and shoulders, is rough and strong. The breast and shoulders, 

 down to the middle of the body, is of a silver-gray colour ; the rest of the 

 body and the brush are of a dirty yellowish or brown. The head and legs 

 are small and siiort in proportion to the body.' 



"Mr. Harmon represents them as aliout the size of a badger, covered 

 with a beautiful long silver-gray hair, and having long bushy tails. Mr. Drum- 

 mond says they resemble the badger of the plains {Meles Labradoria) in 

 colour, but are of rather smaller size."* The animal thus indicated is rep- 

 resented by a considerable series of specimens in the collection of the 

 National Museuir., lOostly from Arctic America. The Arctomijs pruinosus of 

 the present article is unquestionably the Arctomys pruinosun of Richardson, 

 and there seems to me to be no rcnson to question the reference of the Hoary 

 Marmot of Pennant, and hence the Arctomys j'ruinosus of Gmelin, to the 

 same species. 



In 1829, the year following the publication of Richardson's first notice 

 of his Arctomys vruinosus, Eschscholtz figured and described an Arctomys 

 caligatus from specimens obtained near Bristol Bay, on the northwest coast, 

 which is unquestionably referable to the Arctomys pruinosus of Richardson. 

 Richardson himself, in 1839, notes the great resemblance between the two 

 animals. In 1836, King, in the Narrative of Captain Back's Overland Expe- 

 dition to the Arctic Sea, redescribed the species as Arctomys ohmaganus. 

 Of this species Richardson says, in the Zoology of Beechey's Voyage (p. 12*), 



■ Fuana Bor.-Amer. vol. i, 18-^, pp. 1[>0, l.'il. See also Zoul. Juirn. vol. ill, ItUS, p. 518. 



