720 SCIURID^— CITELLUS 



Yorkshire, they caused much trouble in the kitchen garden, among the 

 aviaries and poultry runs, and in woods of deciduous trees, and they 

 also raided the gardens for small fruit. Two plantations of sycamores 

 of about thirty years' growth had scores of trees ruined or disfigured — 

 the bark being peeled off the leaders and upper laterals. The verdict 

 of another observer is that they are destructive in gardens; damage 

 the foliage of wych elms and horse chestnuts ; consume quantities of 

 walnuts, apricots, and other fruit, and dig up crocus bulbs. Apparently 

 they are not so destructive to fir trees as the native brown squirrel, but 

 are inveterate destroyers of eggs and young birds. In the Zoological 

 Gardens they have been observed taking birds' eggs, or, if the young 

 are hatched, they pull them out, or destroy the nests." 



This species is now (November 1918) very common in parts of 

 South Devon. Many individuals are to be seen in the Castle grounds 

 at Exeter. According to Pocock, " it partially hibernates in London 

 parks, or disappears for a few days in cold weather " (art. " Hibernation," 

 Encycl. Brit., 444). The same author states that males predominate in 

 England {Field, 27th Jan. 1912, 187). 



[Genus CITELLUS. 



1 8 16. CiTELLUS, Oken, Lehrb. der Naturgesch. Th. iii., Abth. ii., 824, the genotype 

 being Mus citellus, Linnasus ; Lichtenstein, 1825 ; J. A. Allen, Bull. Amer.^ Mus. 

 Nat. Hist, 16, 1902, 375 ; Miller. 



1825. Speemophilus, F. Cuvier, Dents des Mammiflres, 160 (genotype Mus citellus, 

 Linnasus) ; Blasius and most authors. 



The Sousliks, Spermophiles, or Pouched Marmots, as 

 they are variously called, enjoy a wide distribution in the 

 northern hemisphere and are probably of Asiatic origin. In 

 the Old World they now range eastwards from Silesia, 

 Bohemia, and Hungary, across Central Asia, but they are not 

 known in Japan ; southwards they are represented in Asia 

 Minor, Palestine, and Persia, but do not reach the Himalayan 

 region. In the Pleistocene period they occurred as far west 

 as Denmark and the south of England. Part of the eastward 

 recession of the genus has apparently taken place within the 

 historic period, for Albertus Magnus observed Sousliks in 

 the neighbourhood of Regensburg in the thirteenth century. 

 In North America, Sousliks are found at all altitudes (between 

 sea-level and 10,000 feet in California), from the Pacific Coast 



