15 



and sometimes does considerable damage by pulling young com 

 plants in the spring in an effort to get the grain of seed-corn on 

 the root. 



Woodchuek or Groimd Hog, Arctomys monax Linn. 



Common in most agricultural districts and is occasionally met 

 with in forests remote from human habitations. Feeds on corn in 

 the roasting-ear, which it procures by breaking do^vn the stalks; 

 is also fond of piunpkins, young beans, grass and other cultivated 

 crops. Frequently gnaws and scratches the bark of young fruit 

 trees. Sometimes used as food and its hide is tanned in rural dis- 

 tricts by crude, home-made processes, the tough light-colored leath- 

 er which is obtained being used for gloves, strings, etc. 



Virginia Flying Squirrel, Sciuropterus volans Linn. 



Probably common in all parts of the State but is rarely seen on 

 account of its nocturnal habits. A handsome and harmless little 

 mammal which sleeps by day in hollow trees and comes forth at 

 night to feed on nuts, seeds, etc. Has remarkable flying capacity 

 for a mammal. 



Beaver. Castor canadensis sp. 



Once common but probably long since extinct within our lim- 

 its. Hon. Andrew Price, of ]\Iarlinton, has informed me that there 

 is a well-authenticated ease of a beaver being killed in Pocahontas 

 county about 1907 but he supposes it to have been an individual 

 that had escaped from captivity at some xinknown place. The 

 many streams, moimtains, and other natural features within the 

 State that have the word "beaver" as a part of their name, indi- 

 cates tlie general distribution of this mammal here in an early day. 

 The same inference may be drawn in the case of elk, buffalos and 

 other locally extinct maimnals, from the number of times their 

 names occur in the geography of the State. 



Cloudland Deer ]Mouse. Peromijscus maniculatns nuhiferrae 

 Rhoads. 



Foimd only in the Canadian zone where it dwells in crevices of 



