164 



NORTH AMEEICAN FAUNA. 



[NO. 27. 



Fort Confidence, and its abundance at Marmot Rapid on Dease 

 Eiver.« Ross mentions specimens from [near] Fort Good Hope and 

 Anderson River (loc. cit.). In addition to skins from Lockliart and 

 Anderson rivers, localities still represented in the collection of the 

 U. S. National Museum, specimens are listed by Allen from Liver- 

 pool Ba}^, Franklin Bay, and Onion River (a tributary of the Lock- 

 hart).^ Russell mentions the ' siffleux ' as very abundant near War- 

 ren Point, between the mouth of the Mackenzie and Herschel Island, 

 and took specimens at the latter localit}^ in the late summer of ISD-i/' 

 A. J. Stone says : " I saw Spermophiles sitting on their mounds 

 among the hills to the east of Darnley Ba}^ early in April [1899], 

 during very cold Aveather." '[ 



J. ]M. Bell, who explored the region of Great Bear Lake in tlie sum- 

 mer of 1900, informs me by letter that he found this animal common 

 along the north shore of the lake; and Peter McCallum, who has 

 lived several years in the same region, told me that it is abundant 

 on the • Big Point,' a local name for the point separating Smith and 

 Keith bays, and mainly occupied by the Scented Grass Hills. Mac- 

 Farlane, in manuscript notes sent to me, speaks of these animals as 

 fairly numerous along the banks of the Onion and Lockhart rivers 

 in July, 1860. 



Citellus (Colobotis) plesius (Osgood). Lake Bennett Ground 

 Squirrel. 



While collecting at Fort Norman in June, 1904, I fortunately ob- 

 tained from a native a male ground squirrel which he had shot a 

 few miles back from the west bank of the Mackenzie, ojDposite the 

 post. The sjDCcies was said to be common in the mountains farther 

 back, but to be rare near the river. It measured : Total length 350 ; 

 tail vertebrae 108; hind foot 55. On comparison, it agrees precisely 

 with specimens from Lake Bennett, British Columbia, the tjpe local- 

 ity of C. plesius, and thus greatly extends the known range of that 

 well-marked form. 0. plesius probably inhabits the Nahanni Moun- 

 tains, and other ranges west of the Mackenzie. A specimen from 

 Fort Liard, which I have recently examined, is unmistakably refer- 

 able to it. 



Citellus (Colobotis) columbiamis (Ord). Columbian Ground Squirrel. 



Ground squirrels referred to this species inhabit the Canadian 

 Rockies in western Alberta and southern British Columbia, for an 

 undetermined distance northward. The species was redescribed by 

 Richardson under the name Arctomys pamji var. erytJirogluteia, 



« Narrative Discoveries on North Coast of America, pp. 216, 249, 1843. 

 ^Monographs N. A. Roclentia, pp. 846, 847, 1877. 

 «Expl. in Far North, pp. 143, 249, 1898. 

 '^Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., XIII, p. 6, 1900. 



