188 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
The flesh of this squirrel is tender and edible, but that of the male has a strong 
murine flavour. The Indian boys kill many with the bow and arrow, and also 
take them occasionally with snares set round the trunks of the trees which they 
frequent. Hearne states that they are hard to tame. Their skins are of no value, 
have never formed an article of trade, and are not applied to any purpose even 
by the Indians. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Dental formula, incisors 2, canines $3, grinders < or =} = 20 or 22. 
Incisors, strong, very much compressed, deep at their roots from before backwards; flat 
on the sides ; convex and of a deep orange colour anteriorly. The upper ones have an even 
chisel-shaped cutting edge. The lower ones are not much longer and are more pointed. 
Grinders.—The squirrels are said to have five grinders in the upper jaw when young. The 
Hudson’s Bay squirrel loses the small anterior one very early, as, after examining a great 
many specimens, I found none with more than four on a side in the upper jaw. In the famias 
and spermophiles the fifth grinder remains when the animal is full grown, but is pro- 
portionably larger in the latter than in the former. ‘The inner surface of the upper grinders 
of the Hudson’s Bay squirrel are more obtuse, and consequently their areas are less wedge- 
shaped than those of the grinders of the Spermophiles. They are likewise more excavated 
on the crowns, and have less elevated ridges of enamel. The lower grinders have also 
excavated crowns, and the two anterior points of each tooth do not form an elevated crest 
as in the spermophiles. The under jaw is shorter but rather stronger than in the latter 
genus, and the space for the lodgement of the brain is larger. There is also a much greater 
distance between the orbits; the frontal bone is flat; and the nose less arched than in the 
genera tamias and spermophilus. 
Form.—Nose obtuse, forehead very slightly arched. Mouth rather far back. Whiskers 
black, longer than the head. Hars rounded, somewhat concave; the posterior margin doubles 
forwards to form a valve over the auditory opening, and the anterior one curves in to form a 
helix. Both sides of the ear are covered with hair; that which clothes the outside being 
longest, and when the fur is in prime order, projecting upwards beyond the margin ; but there 
is not at any time a distinct tuft on the tip of the ear, like that which ornaments the common 
English Squirrel. F 
Colour.—There is a short blackish central stripe on the end of the nose; the sides of the 
nose are pale brown, sometimes almost white. A broad stripe of bright chestnut com- 
mences between the ears, and is continued down the back and along the tail nearly to its 
tip: this chestnut colour is intimately speckled with black, and mixes more or less gradually 
with the colour of the sides in different specimens. The forehead, cheeks, sides, and exterior 
surfaces of the extremities are of a grayish-brown speckled colour, resulting from minute 
black specks being equally distributed over a pale yellowish-brown or wood-brown ground, The 
upper and under eyelids, a space round the mouth and the throat, are white. The belly and 
