878 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



ences to many of the species must necessarily, under the circumstances, 

 be made. Although Mr. Alston has showa the incorrectness of some of 

 my identifications, and the necessity of substituting, in two instances, 

 names other than those I was led to adopt, I feel, on the whole, no small 

 degree of satisfaction in the confirmation of so large a portion of my 

 synonymic work by the trying ordeal to which it has been submitted ; 

 especially as Mr. Alston has done me the kindness to state, in several 

 instances, that I was led into mistakes by descriptions that did not 

 properly represent the objects described. The purpose of the present 

 l)aper is to correct these errors, so far as they have been satisfactorily 

 shown, and to present a nomenclature that fairly reflects the present 

 state of the subject. 



In my former revision of the Sciuri of Tropical America, I felt author- 

 ized in reducing fully four-fifths of the previously described species to 

 synonyms, and stated it as my belief that I had still recognized too 

 many rather than too few. Mr. Alston, with far more — and mainly his- 

 toric — material at his command, has, in one or two instances, carried the 

 reduction still further, but, on the other hand, has added one or two 

 species unrepresented in the material I had before me. While I recog- 

 nized ten species and two subspecies, he has raised the number of the 

 former to twelve. The changes, so far as species are concerned, consist 

 in his elevating one of my subspecies to full specific rank; in treating 

 as a species a form I regarded as the young of another species ; in unit- 

 ing, in two instances, two of my species into one; and in restoring two 

 species I treated as nominal. These changes, as well as those of nomen- 

 clature and synonymy, will be fully noted in the following pages. 



For the purpose mainly of presenting a connected view of the Amer- 

 ican Sciuri, but partly to correct one or two errors of synonymy, I 

 include the North American species in the subjoined enumeration, 

 although I have no changes to make in the nomenclature adopted in 

 "Monographs of North American Eodentia". In order to distinguish 

 readily those that are represented in the North American fauna, I divide 

 the species, as before, into two geographical series. Gray's species are 

 assigned in accordance with Mr. Alston's determinations, based on an 

 examination of the types, as are also those of Peters, Pucheran, Cuvier, 

 Geoffroy, Bennett, and Eichardson. Consequently the synonymatic 

 tables here presented are substantially the same as Mr. Alston's, 



A.— NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 

 I. — SciuEUS HUDsoNius, Pallas. 



1. — Var. hudsonius. 



Sciurus vulgaris, Forster, Phil. Trans. Ixii, 1772, 378. 



Sciurus vulgaris, s, hudsonicus, Erxleben, Syst. Anim. 1777, 416. 



Sciurus hudsonius, Pallas, Nov. Spec. Glires, 1778, 376. 



Sciurus carolinus, Ord, " Guthrie's Geogr. (2d Am. ed.) ii, 1815, 292." 



Sciurus ruh'olineatus, Desmakest, Maiu. ii, 1822, 333. 



