316 
BA8SAKIS ASTUTA. 
HABITS. 
The greater portion of Texas is prairie-land, and it is chiefly along the 
water courses, that trees are found growing together in numbers sufficient 
to constitute a “wood.” On certain level and clayey portions of the 
prairie, however, the land is swampy, and is covered with several kinds 
of oaks and a few other trees. The well-known musquit tree or bush is 
found generally distributed in the western parts of the State. It re- 
sembles the acacia in leaf, and has a small white pea-shaped blossom ; 
at a distance it looks something like an old peach tree. Its wood is simi- 
lar to coarse mahogany in appearance, and burns well, in fact beauti- 
fully, as the coals keep in for a long time ; and the wood gives out little 
or no smoke. The musquit bottoms are furnished with these trees, they 
are small, about the size of the alder, and grow much in the same way ; 
the musquit has sharp thorns. The musquit grass, {Holcus lanatus), re- 
sembles what is called, guinea grass, it is broader, shorter, softer, and 
more curly. 
The general features of the State of Texas, as it will be seen by the 
foregoing, do not indicate a country where many tree-climbing animals 
could be found, and the present beautiful species, which Professor Lich- 
tenstein most appropriately name Bassaris astuta, is by no means common. 
It is a lively, playful, and nimble creature, leaps about on the trees, and 
has very much the same actions as the squirrel, which it resembles in agility 
and grace, always having a hole in the tree upon which it resides, and 
betaking itself to that secure retreat at once if alarmed. 
The Bassaris Astuta is shy and retired in its habits, and in the daytime 
often stays in its hole in some tree, so that we were only able to procure 
about half a-dozen of these animals during our stay in Texas ; among 
which, to our regret, there was not a single female. 
The food of this species is chiefly small animals, birds, and insects ; 
they also eat nuts, as we were told, descending from their hiding place 
and travelling to the pecan and other trees, for the purpose of feeding on 
the nuts which, if true, is singular, as they are decidedly carnivorous in 
their dentition. 
They are much attached to the tree on which they live, which is gene- 
rally a post-oak, a live-oak, or other large tree, and they seldom quit the 
immediate vicinity of their hole, unless when driven out by thrusting a 
stick at them, when they ascend the trunk of the tree, and jump about 
among the higher branches so long as the pole is held close to their nest ; 
as soon as this is withdrawn, they descend and at once re-enter their dwell- 
ing-place and hide themselves. These animals have a singular habit of 
