82 



NORTH AMERICANi FAUNA 66 



It produces litters of from three to six young early in the spring and 

 often a second litter in late summer. 



The center of Maryland's red squirrel population is the spruce and 

 hemlock forests of the Allegheny Mountain section of the State. It is 

 scarce or absent over most of the Western Shore section and apparently 

 lacking in the Eastern Shore section. David H. Johnson, formerly 

 Curator of Mammals, U.S. National Museum, tells me that he is very 

 familiar with pine woods near Greenbelt, Prince Georges County, and 

 never observed a red squirrel there. J. C. Lingebach, Division of Mam- 

 mals, U.S. National Museum, advises me that in his many years of field 

 experience in the Annapolis area of Anne Arundel County he never 

 observed a red squirrel. Flyger (1957, p. 1), however, reports that 

 he trapped a red squirrel on 23 February 1957 near the Naval Academy 

 in Annapolis and that there had been a colony there for several 

 years. This is probably an artificially introduced population. Red 

 squirrels have, however, been taken at such Western Shore section 

 localities as Laurel, Bladensburg, Oxon Hill, Riverdale, and College 

 Park, in Prince Georges County, and Marshall Hall in Charles County. 

 These localities are not very distant from the fall line and the begin- 

 ning of the Piedmont section, and elsewhere in the Western Shore 

 section the red squirrel appears to be exceedingly scarce. 



Even in the Piedmont section the species is only locally abundant, 

 being completely absent over large areas. At one time it was numerous 

 in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., but none have been seen 

 there in recent years. It is still plentiful in some suburban areas north- 

 west of Washington. A lactating female was found dead by David 

 H. Johnson on a road adjacent to a pine woods a few miles northwest 

 of Bethesda, Montgomery County, in October 1955, and another near 

 this general area in September 1957. Johnson tells me that it is the 

 common squirrel in some of the pine woods in the Bethesda area, 

 being more often seen there than gray squirrels. In the Piedmont sec- 

 tion of Baltimore County, Hampe (1939, p. 6) reported red squirrels 

 uncommon in the pine woods of the Patapsco State Park, but Bures 

 (1948, p. 67) found that it was a common resident of the Bare Hills- 

 Lake Roland area a few miles to the northeast. Evidently, the red 

 squirrel has a scattered distribution in Maryland and is only abundant 

 locally. 



Specimens examined. — Allegany County: Frostburg, 1; Mount 

 Savage, 2 (Coll. U. Md.) . Charles County: Marshall Hall, 1. Frederick 

 County: Middletown, 6. Garrett County: Bittinger, 1; Finzel, 2; 

 Grantsville, 1; Swallow Falls State Park, 1. Harford County: Falls- 

 ton, 1. Howard County: Long Corner, 1. Montgomery County: Be- 

 thesda, 3% miles NW, 1; Bethesda, 5 miles NW, 1; Kensington, 8; 

 Linden, 2; Plummers Island, 1; Takoma Park, 3. Prince Georges 



