MAMMALS OF LIBERIA 993 
higher forest, frequently coming to the ground and searching about for food or 
travelling from one thicket to another. We occasionally came upon it running 
ahead on the trail but at the least alarm, it will dash into the dense tangles on 
either side and disappear. It is of general distribution throughout the country, 
but avoids the deep forest except along the edges of the waterways. Biittikofer 
notes it about Buluma, and on the Junk and Du rivers, especially in small trees 
and about the palm orchards. He found their nests in the axils of oil-palm fronds 
about six feet from the ground, and composed of palm-leaf fiber. These nests 
would contain but two blind young, and these are often brought in by the natives. 
He speaks further of their frequenting the Raphia palms along the streams. 
Two, their eyes still unopened, were brought to us, August 6, on the Du. We 
watched one pair that had a nest in a vine-covered tree on the edge of a river, 
in primeval forest. The squirrels were watchful but frequently descended the 
few feet to the ground in search of food, retreating to their shelter if alarmed. 
In mid-July and in early October we had young brought to us that could have 
been but a few weeks old. One we kept for a few days alive frequently uttered a 
series of shrill barks, rising then diminishing in volume, somewhat like the notes 
of a Stone Curlew, more bird-like than mammalian. Specimens were preserved 
from the Du River, Paiata, Kakatown, Moylakwelli, and Towya, and Miller 
has recorded it from Mount Coffee. 
Heliosciurus gambianus punctatus (Temminck) 
Sciurus punctatus Temminck, Esquisses Zool. sur la Cote de Guiné, 1853, p. 1388: Guinea. 
Small, total length about 370 mm.; general color above minutely grizzled reddish, ochraceous, 
and black; below grayish; tail long and narrow, transversely banded with black and ochraceous 
or reddish above, tipped with black, the lower surface a mixture of the dorsal colors, without definite 
cross-bars. West African coastal area. 
This is closely related to the following species, but unlike it, avoids in general 
the high forest, seeking instead the lower second-growth trees on the edges of 
the forests or the borders of old plantations and clearings. We secured two 
specimens, one on the Du the other at Paiata. It is apparently less common 
than the other species of its genus and quite as shy, usually seeing us first and 
quickly running away from tree to tree till lost among the thick foliage. Butti- 
kofer and his associates collected it at Soforé Place and Buluma, as well as on the 
Junk River, while Miller records it from Mount Coffee. 
Heliosciurus rufobrachium maculatus (Temminck) 
Sciurus maculatus Temminck, Esquisses Zool. sur la Cote de Guiné, 1853, p. 180: Gold Coast. 
A larger species than the preceding, total length about 490 mm.; above blackish minutely 
grizzled with ochraceous on the back and grayish on the limbs and sides; lower side of arms and 
legs rufous, throat gray, belly washed with rusty yellow; tail black, the terminal two-thirds above 
with some ten cross-bars of whitish-tipped hairs; lower side grizzled with white. Eastern Sierra 
Leone to the Gold Coast. 
This is a squirrel of the high primeval forest, where its dark coloring har- 
monizes with the shadows of its habitat, or it may be found in the thinner borders 
of tall trees along the streams and on the edges of clearings. Biittikofer regarded 
