66 



KOBTH AMERICAN FAUKA. 



[No. 3T. 



King, ill naming the species in 1836, gave an excellent description 

 and figure of the animal, based on two living individuals which had 

 been brought from the Okanogan region to Norway House, Canada. 

 These were later presented by King to the Zoological Gardens in 

 London, where they were seen by Audubon, and after the death of 

 the animals the skins served as the basis of the figure of the hoary 

 marmot in his ' ' Quadrupeds of North America." The type specimen, 

 as I am informed by Oldfield Thomas, is still in the British Museum 

 collection (No. 55.12.24.126) and agrees in every detail with the 

 original description. The skull probably (not certainly) belonging to 

 the skin is so diseased by menagerie life as to be of no use for com- 

 parison. 



The original description is so complete and agrees so well with the 

 form occurring in the Selkirks that I have no hesitation in fixing the 

 type locality in the Gold Range— the first range to the eastward of 

 Shuswap Lake — where it is likely the type was secured.* 



Specimens examined. — Total number, 18, as follows: 

 Alberta: Henry House (mountains 15 miles south), 2. 



British Columbia: Field, 2;^ Glacier, 7; Spillimacheen River, 3;^ Toad Moun- 

 tain (6 miles south of Nelson), 4. 



MARMOTA CALIGATA NIVARIA Howell. 

 Montana Hoary Marmot. 

 (PI. X, fig. 2; PI. XII, fig. 4.) 

 Marmota caligata nivaria Howell, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, XXVII, 1914, p. 17. 



Type locality. — Mountains near Upper St. Marys Lake, Mont, 

 (altitude, 6,100 feet). 



Distribution. — Upper slopes (at and above timberline) of high 

 mountains of northwestern Montana and of Bitterroot and Salmon 

 Kiver Mountains, Idaho (limits of range imperfectly known). 



Characters. — Whitest member of the group, being very much 

 whiter than either oTcanagana or oxytona; similar in size and skull 

 characters to oxytona. 



Color. — Adults: Fore part of back (to middle) snowy white, spar- 

 ingly grizzled with black, the underfur dark hair-brown; hinder back 

 pinkish cinnamon or cinnamon-buff mixed with black and white, 

 the underfur bone brown; top of head black, much mixed with white 

 and with a large white patch across face in front of eyes; sides of face 

 brownish, mixed with white and cinnamon-buff; fore feet black with 



1 King defines the type region as follows: " In a small tract of country, on the borders of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, lying between the Columbia and Fraser Rivers, these animals are found in abundance, supplying 

 with food and clothing the Okanagan Indians, whose territory is bounded to the north by the Seechwap 

 Lake, and to the south by the Spokane River * * *." (King, R, Narr. Joum. to Shores of Arctic 

 Ocean, II, 1836, p. 241.) 



2 Collection Victoria Mem. Mus. 



3 Collection Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 



