50 



SPERMOPHILES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



At Elk River, Minn., where I first made their acquaintance in the 

 spring of 1872, they Avere rather scarce, though on a farm with the 

 best of opportunities for observing them, usually not more than six or 

 eight were seen during a summer for the succeeding fourteen years of 

 my residence in this place. As they were not sufficiently common to 

 do much damage, they were rarely killed, and their numbers seemed 

 never to change appreciably. This locality is at the extreme eastern 

 limit of their range in that latitude. A little further west they are 

 much more common, and seem to reach the maximum abundance along 

 the valleys of Minnesota and Red rivers. 



Introduction into New Jersey. — A widely isolated colony of these 

 spermophiles exists in eastern New Jersey, in theregion about Tucker - 

 ton, where a single pair, brought from Illinois, escaped from their cage 

 in 1867. Concerning the origin of this colony, Dr. J. A. Allen has writ- 

 ten briefly as follows : 



"I learned of its introduction there through Mr. Samuel Jillson, who 

 first wrote me about it some three or four years since. Writing him 

 recently for further information respecting the date and manner of its 

 introduction, as well as for information respecting its present numbers 

 and the area of its range, he has kindly readied as follows, under date 

 of 'Tuckerton, New Jersey, May 6, 1877' : — ' The date of its introduction 

 is May, 1867, when a single pair was brought here by Mr. Sylvester 

 Ma this, from Illinois. This pair soon gnawed out of their cage and 

 escaped. This was in the village of Tuckerton. They are now found 

 in Minahawken, 9 miles north of Tuckerton, and also 4 miles south of 

 Tuckerton, and very likely farther. They are very common on all the 

 farms about here, 3 miles from the village' [of Tuckerton]." (Mono- 

 graphs ET. Am. Rodentia, 1877, p. 883.) 



In June last year Mr. E. A. Preble, of the Division of Ornithology 

 and Mammalogy, visited Tuckerton, N. J., for the express purpose 

 of ascertaining whether this introduced colony was increasing and 

 whether their depredations were of a serious nature. In his report 

 he says: "They are known to the inhabitants as the 6 Prairie Squirrel' 

 in contradistinction from the gray timber squirrel native to the region. 

 Instead of increasing in the vicinity of Tuckerton their numbers have 

 diminished of late years from the constant war waged against them 

 by men, boys, and dogs. Still their range is steadily widening, and 

 they are now common over much of the southern portion of the State. 

 They have spread westward almost across the state to Auburn, Salem 

 County, near the Delaware River, and northward at least as far as Red 

 Lion, in Burlington County. The sandy uplands seem to furnish a con 

 genial soil in which to make their burrows, which are usually placed in 

 brushy fence corners along fields and roads or occasionally out in open 

 fields. True to their native instincts they do not enter the more thickly 

 timbered regions, but keep to the naturally open land or cleared fields, 

 past iiics. and roadsides. 



