1924] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the SkeenaBiver Region 381 



Columbia and California. In the skulls from British Columbia the 

 nasals are short and the zygomata are rather evenly bowed for their 

 whole length. The skulls from California have longer nasals, and 

 straight, angular zygomata. In the four skulls from California, a 

 straight edge (such as a rule) laid alongside the zygomatic arch will 

 touch the bone for distances of from 20 to 33 millimeters. In the 

 skulls from British Columbia the contact is from 10 to 15 millimeters. 

 There is not much individual variation among the specimens in each 

 series, the four skulls from California, on the one hand, and the three 

 from Nine-mile Mountain on the other. Porcupines from the coast of 

 southeastern Alaska have skuUs that most nearly approach the British 

 Columbia type of structure. One from Telegraph Creek, upper 

 Stikine Kiver, is closely similar to the specimens from Nine-mile 

 Mountain. 



Marmota caligata oxytona Hollister. Robson Hoary Marmot 



Abundant on Nine-mile Mountain, at timber line and higher. 

 Occupied burrows were mostly in the rock slides, but not invariably so. 

 Some were found on sunny slopes that were not especially rocky, one 

 or two in dense spruce woods (not far from openings), and a number 

 that were hidden in thickets of prostrate balsam above the limit of 

 upright timber. Young marmots, a quarter-grown or less, were seen 

 during the last week in July. Two such youngsters with their parent 

 were in view daily at the mouth of a burrow a stone 's throw from our 

 camp. 



Five marmots (nos. 32760-32764) were collected, three adult males 

 and two young females. Besides these T exarained eight or ten Indian 

 robes made of about thirty marmot skins each, all from animals killed 

 in the general vicinity of Hazelton. Skins from this region are dark 

 colored ventrally, compared with average caligata from the coast of 

 Alaska, and, in the five specimens from Nine-mile Mountain, there is 

 almost complete elimination of the white mark found between the eyes 

 in caligata. Otherwise, marmots from the Hazelton region are not 

 markedly different from caligata in coloration. The skulls of the 

 specimens from Nine-mile Mountain show the elongation attributed to 

 oxytona (Hollister, 1912a, p. 1; Howell, 1915, p. 63), as compared 

 with the broader skull of caligata. Thus marmots from the Hazelton 

 region appear to be intermediate between caligata and oxytona, much 

 like the former in general coloration, like the latter in skull characters. 



