O92 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
SCIURIDAE Squirrels 
Aethosciurus poensis musculinus (Temminck). Green Bush Squirrel 
Sciurus musculinus Temminck, Esquisses Zool. sur la Cote de Guiné, p. 142, 1853: Guinea Coast. 
Small, with narrow tapering tail; general color a finely grizzled mixture of black and greenish 
yellow, clearer yellowish below, giving a general greenish appearance. West African forest region. 
Compared with specimens from the Cameroons taken to be the same as 
A. poensis of the island of Fernando Po, the Liberian examples of this bush 
squirrel are of a much warmer tone, suffused above with a ruddy brown, notice- 
ably different from the paler greenish color characterizing the more eastern 
animal. The yellowish wash of the lower surface of the body is also deeper, 
almost ochraceous. We are therefore reviving for this squirrel, Temminck’s 
name musculinus, for in his brief description he particularly mentions the color- 
ing as grayish black, finely punctate with ‘‘un roux vif,” which hardly applies 
to the Cameroon race but indicates well enough the warm brown tone of the 
more western squirrel of the rain forest area of Liberia and adjacent parts, for 
the description was doubtless based on specimens collected by Pel on the Gold 
Coast. 
Hollister in his review of East African mammals, regards Aethosciurus as a 
genus closely related to Heliosciurus or even doubtfully distinct from it, for the 
presence of an additional small upper premolar is a relatively shght character. 
Nevertheless the peculiar greenish coloring, tapering tail, and the habits are 
distinctive. It is a squirrel of low bushy growth or it frequents the tangles of 
vines enveloping trees at the open edges of forest, instead of the high forest trees 
themselves. More than once we saw single ones crossing from one low tree to 
another on connecting vines in the bushy second-growth. When once startled, 
they seldom stop to look back but at once hurry away and hide among the 
tangled masses of vines and leafy twigs. Specimens were secured at Paiata, 
Banga, and Tappi Town, but none was seen in the heavier growth. Miller 
records an imperfect specimen from Mount Coffee, and observes that it is 
different in appearance from Cameroon specimens. 
Funisciurus pyrrhopus leonis Thomas. Red-legged Bush Squirrel 
Funisciurus pyrrhopus leonis Thomas, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 7, vol. 15, p. 79, 1905: Bo, 
Sierra Leone. 
Length about 350 mm.; from nose to base of tail a fine mixture of black hairs and hairs tipped 
with greenish yellow; a pale ochraceous flank stripe, and below it a black stripe; sides of face and 
body including the legs bright ferruginous; tail black above, mixed with white, the white-tipped 
hairs forming a narrow border; below, the tail is ferruginous in the center, while the under parts of 
the body from chin to base of tail and inside of the limbs are white to the roots of the hairs. 
The form of Red-legged Bush Squirrel occurring in eastern Sierra Leone is 
said to differ from the race of the Gold Coast, F. p. leucostigma, in having the 
flanks a richer rufous. In typical pyrrhopus of the Cameroons, the limbs only 
are rufous. 
This is the squirrel most often seen in Liberia. It frequents low thick trees 
along the streams especially, or the scrubby second-growth on the edges of 
