NORTHERN GRAY SQUIRREL. 273 



be eath the straw and cotton at the bottom of their cage in a little heap. 

 A very tame and gentle one we had in a room at Shippingport, near 

 Louisville, Kentucky, one night ate its way into a bureau, in virhich we 

 had a quantity of arsenic in powder, and died next morning a victim to 

 curiosity or appetite, probably the latter, for the bureau also contained 

 some wheat. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



This species exists as far to the north as Hudson's Bay. It was for- 

 merly very common in the New England States, and in their least cul- 

 tivated districts is still frequently met with. It is abundant in New York 

 and in the mountainous portions of Pennsylvania. We have observed it 

 on the northern mountaii.s of Virginia, and we obtained several speci- 

 mens on the Upper Missouri. The black variety is more abundant in 

 Upper Canada, in the western part of New York, and in the States of 

 Ohio and Indiana, than elsewhere. The Northern Gray Squirrel does 

 not exist in any of its varieties in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, or 

 Alabama ; and among specimens sent to us from Louisiana, stated to in- 

 clude all the squirrels existing in that State, we did not discover this 

 species. 



GENERAL, REMARKS. 



There exists a strong general resemblance among all our species of 

 this genus, and it is therefore not surprising that thers should have been 

 great difficulty in finding characters to designate the various species. In 

 the museums we examined in Europe, we observed that several species 

 had been confounded, and we were every where told by the eminent 

 naturalists with whom we conversed on the subject, that they could find 

 no characters by which the difierent species could be distinguished. 

 The little Carolina gray squirrel was first described by Gmelin. Desma- 

 EEST, who created a confusion among the various species of this genus, 

 which is almost inextricable, confounded three species — the Northern 

 Gray Squirrel, the Southern Carolina squirrel, and the cat-squirrel — under 

 the name of Sc. cinereus, and gave them the diminutive size of ten inches 

 •six lines. His article vi^as literally translated by Harlan, including the 

 measurements, (Desm., Mamm., p. 332 ; Harlan's Fauna, p. 173,) and he 

 also apparently blended the three species — S. cinereus, S. migratorius, 

 and S. Carolinensis. Godman called the Northern species S. Cavolinensis, 

 and Leconte, who appears to have had a more correct view^ of the species 

 generally than all previous authors, (see Appendix to McMurtkie's trans- 



36 



