THE AMERICAN BLACK SQUIRREL. 
‘SCIURUS NIGER. Linn. 
Few animals are subject to more extensive variations 
of colour than the Squirrels of the northern and tem- 
perate regions of the globe. In the higher latitudes of 
the Old World the common species assumes during the 
winter an entire coat of gray, and in this state furnishes 
one of our most common and useful furs. Farther east- 
wards, and especially in the neighbourhood of Lake 
Baikal and on the banks of the Lena, we are told by 
Pallas that these animals are found during the summer 
of a sooty brown, and in the winter of a leaden gray, 
with their tails black and shming. They are also not 
uncommonly met with in the same localities entirely 
or partially white ; and even, according to J. G. Gmelin 
and other travellers, occasionally wholly black. Zim- 
merman informs us that the Museum at Brunswick 
