92 NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. (No. 16. 
elevations they seem to feed largely on the much smaller seeds of the 
Shasta firs, the cones of which they collect in large numbers, These 
cones are gathered in heaps at the bases of trees, where the squirrels 
live, and are also stored in decayed logs, where they are stutted into 
all available openings. As 1898, the year of our visit, was an ‘off year’ 
tor cones, we were forced, in order to obtain specimens, to take advan- 
tage of the stores made by these squirrels the previous year. In 
them we found innumerable cones, more or less perfect and with the 
seeds still untouched, of both Abies shastensis and A. loiriana. 
Sciurus fossor Peale. Oregon Gray Squirrel; Large Tree Squirrel. 
Fairly common in the pine forest covering the southern and western 
basal slopes of Shasta. At different times during the summer these 
large squirrels were seen in Squaw Creek Valley and between Sisson 
and Edgewood. On July 13 Vernon Bailey found thei common near 
Bear Creek, between Fall River Valley and Shasta, where the sugar 
pines begin. They were then cutting off the scales and eating the green 
seeds of the half-grown cones of sugar pines. 
Sciuropterus alpinus klamathensis Merriam. Klamath Flying Squirrel. 
The only flying squirrel seen by our party was observed by me in 
August on a cedar stub near a small stream a couple of miles below 
Wagon Camp, but was not secured. There is therefore some uncertainty 
as to the species. At Sisson I was informed that a boy had a pair alive 
in a cage, but he left town with them before they could be examined. 
Castor canadensis Kuhl. Beaver. 
Probably not now living in the immediate vicinity of Shasta, although 
in 1883, according to C. H. Townsend, “a number of them occupied 
unmolested a dam, which they had constructed in a corner of a meadow 
belonging to Mr. J. H. Sisson.” They were formerly common in Shasta 
River, where Walter K. Fisher was recently told a few were seen in 
the winter of 1898-99. 
Aplodontia major Merriam. Aplodontia; Sewellel. 
In makiug the cireuit of Shasta the latter part of July, Vernon 
Bailey and I discovered a colony of aplodontias in some rank vegeta- 
tion covering a springy place in Ash Creek Canyon, in the upper part 
of the Canadian zone. A little later W. K. and R. T. Fisher were sent 
there and obtained two specimens. About the same time they and 
W. Hz. Osgood caught eight in Mud Creek Canyon near the mouth of 
Clear Creek, at an altitude of nearly 7.000 feet. 
Aplodontias live in wet or damp places usually overgrown with rank 
vegetation, and preferably in springy, sloping ground where some ot 
their innumerable burrows and sunken runways are kept wet by the 
cold trickling water. Asis well known, they eut various plants, com. 
monly rank or woody kinds, which they gather and carry in bundles 
to their burrows, or to places near by, where they spread them out to dry. 
