222 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



a single pair was brought here by Mr. Sylvester Mathis from lUinois. This 

 pair soon gnawed out of their cage and escaped. This was in the village of 

 Tuckerton. They are now found in Manahawken, nine miles north of Tuck- 

 erton, and also four miles south of Tuckertpn and very likely farther. They 

 are very common on all the farms about here, three miles from the village [of 

 Tuckerton]. They seem to always keep in the fields, as I have never seen 

 them in the woods. I find very little dirt at the mouth of their burrows, 

 sometimes none. From one to two buckets of water poured into their holes 

 will bring them out. We kill all we can on our farm. They destroy young 

 chickens and turkeys, and the dogs dig large holes in our fields trying to get 

 at the Gophers. I once found one in a salt hay stack in spring, dead, coiled 

 up in the smallest ball possible. I also found one dead in my barn well. I 

 think many of them winter in stacks and under outbuildings, for I never could 

 drown out any late m the fall, in the flat fields. They are never seen here in 

 winter, and no doubt are then dormant.' " 



Dr. Allen mentions another article on this subject, published by N. H. 

 Bishop, in "Forest and Stream," Jan. 4, 1877, which covers the same ground 

 and conjectures " whether the changed conditions will ultimately modify 

 materially its habits and structure." To determine this and discover its dis- 

 tribution and abundance, I made a trip to Tuckerton in 1893, visiting the 

 Messrs. Jillson and others in the surrounding country. This was during the 

 fall season and the animals were hibernating. I secured no specimens except 

 one mounted several years before by Mr. Jillson. Three or four burrows 

 known to have been inhabited were visited without securing any. It was the 

 general opinion that they were much diminished, though still present around 

 Tuckerton. I found the skull of one lying near some salt hay ricks on the 

 edge of the salt marsh. Since that date I have frequently endeavored, by the 

 offer of 50 cents or even ^i each, to secure specimens without success. This 

 indicates their scarcity and the difificulty of catching them, which the natives 

 complain about. 



Mr. G. H. Van Note, of Barnegat, wrote me, in 1 899 : " I think a few are 

 left." Mr. T. P. Price, of Tuckerton, writes, under date of Dec, 1900 : "I 

 have twice seen them within the past year and Joseph Webb (barber) told 

 me he saw one last ' dove season.' " Mr. James A. G. Rehn, of Philadelphia, 

 tells me that in a recent zoological trip through the " Plains " of south central 

 Burlington Co. he had conversation with a Mr. Wills, of Speedwell, regarding 

 animals of that region. Wills told him of a squirrel, evidently of this species, 

 which within a year or two had damaged cornfields near Eagle, i mile west 

 of Speedwell, undermining the hills of corn. He had in former years cap- 

 tured them in cornfields near Speedwell. — Rhoads, 1902. 



Description of species. — The color of typical Spermophilus franklini is 

 stated by Allen to be yellowish-brown above, varied with black, the black 



