204 
SEVERN RIVER FLYING-SQUIRREL. 
confinement by an acquaintance of ours, for about four months, and the 
little ones, five in number, were suckled in the following manner : the 
younglings stood on the ground floor of the cage, whilst the mother hung 
her body downwards, and secured herself from falling by clinging to the 
perch immediately above her head by her fore-feet. This was observed 
every day, and some days as frequently as eight or ten times. 
This brood was procured as follows : a piece of partially cleared wood 
having been set on fire, the labourers saw the Flying-Squirrel start from a 
hollow stump with a young one in her mouth, and watched the place where 
she deposited it, in another stump at a little distance. The mother returned 
to her nest, and took away another and another in succession, until all 
were removed, when the wood-cutters went to the abode now occupied by 
the affectionate animal, and caught her already singed by the fire, and her 
five young unscathed. 
After some time a pair of the young were given away to a friend. The 
three remaining ones, as well as the mother, were killed in the following 
manner : 
The cage containing them was hung near the window, and one night 
during the darkness, a rat, or rats ( mus decumanus), caught hold of the 
three young through the bars, and ate off all their flesh, leaving the skins 
almost entire, and the heads remaining inside the bars. The mother had 
had her thigh broken and her flesh eaten from the bone, and yet this good 
parent was so affectionately attached to her brood that when she was 
found in this pitiable condition in the morning, she was clinging to her 
offspring, and trying to nurse them as if they had still been alive. 
This species is said to bear a considerable resemblance to the European 
Flying-Squirrel. It was first described by Forster, who not having dis- 
tinguished it from the European animal, Pennant stands as its discoverer. 
We did not observe any of these Flying-Squirrels on the borders of the 
Yellow Stone or Upper Missouri, and have no further information as to 
their habits. 
In our first volume (pp. 134, 135), we mentioned that Sir John Rich- 
ardson speaks of a Flying-Squirrel which he considered a variety of P. 
sabrinus, and called var. B. alpinus. We then remarked that we hoped to 
be able to identify that variety when presenting an account of the habits 
of P. sabrinus, and in our next article shall have the pleasure of doing so, 
having named it P. alpinus. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
The northern range of this species is about latitude 52° ; it has been 
