138 University of California Publications in Zoology. [Vou.5 
Sciuropterus californicus (Rhoads). 
San Bernardino Flying Squirrel. 
Flying squirrels are doubtless far more plentiful than one 
would judge from our experience with them. None of my party 
ever saw one outside of a trap, and they were reported by eamp- 
ers and others very rarely. Their strictly nocturnal habits 
doubtless account for this. We heard of flying squirrels having 
been caught at Bear lake, on Fish ereek, and on Barton (or Hath- 
away) flats. In the last case a wood-chopper had found one in 
a dead tree. All of the summer of 1905 we kept traps out in 
every likely loeality we visited; but it was not until August 29 
that we were finally successful. We had been told of some little 
animal whieh had been heard at night on the roof of the creamery 
at Mr. Coombs’s house on the south side of Bear lake; also that 
these or other animals had visited a garbage box back of the 
house carrying off musk-melon rinds. I accordingly sent Dixon 
down August 28, 29, and 30, and he set several ‘‘out 0’ sight’’ 
rat traps and No. 0 steel traps on the roof and on branches of a 
pine standing close by. The first night a trap was sprung, and 
on each of the next two nights a female flying squirrel was se- 
cured in a rat trap. Meanwhile we had run traps at Bluff lake 
and at our camp a mile east of there; and on September 2 about 
midnight a third female was captured in a figure-4 trap within 
ten feet of where we were lying. We had used a variety of bait, 
but the only thing which proved attractive was dried prunes. 
The last individual I took back to Pasadena alive, and it 
lived in my mother’s house, a very attractive pet, until April 24, 
1907, when it died and I skinned it. It had been allowed the 
freedom of an upper screened porch, as well as other parts of 
the house at different times. It made nests of all sorts of dif- 
ferent material, in drawers of bureaus, and in a box put for the 
purpose on a high shelf. The two years of captivity amid any- 
thing but normal surroundings brought about no decided changes 
in color that I can discern, except that the pelage of the captive 
animal is less worn and slightly less ochraceous about the head, 
and this may be entirely due to the difference in season. 
The three specimens show the following measurements : 
