154 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXXIV, 
startling at first sight), and in some instances to carry the reduction of species 
still further; but it has also enabled me to correct a few errors in his 
synonymy, and to point out a few apparently valid species with which 
he was not acquainted. he | | 
“Particularly rich in this group are the Paris and British Museums; and 
the study of their long suites of specimens leads one irresistibly to conclu- 
sions which must appear strange to those who only know the extreme links 
of the chain. Among other things they have convinced me that Mr. Allen 
has laid too much stress on the comparative size of the ears, and length and — 
bushiness of the tail, as distinctive characters. In both these points, as 
well as in the quality of the pelage, every intermediate stage is often to be 
found; and I have therefore been obliged to unite Mr. Allen’s S. awreogaster 
and S. leucops, his S. boothie and 8. hypopyrrhus, and his S. gerrardi and S. 
variabilis. On the other hand, I have felt obliged to recognize, at least 
provisionally, the specific rank of S. stramineus, S. griseogenys, S. rufo-niger, 
and S. pusillus and more doubtfully that of S. griseoflavus,— thus raising 
the number of species from ten to twelve”’ (J. ¢., pp. 657, 658). 
The seven species recognized by Alston as occurring in South America 
are Scvurus stramineus, 8. variabilis, S. griseogenys, S. estuans, S. deppei, 
S. rufo-niger, and 8. pusillus, the first and the last being additional to those 
recognized by me the previous year. 
A few months later I published my ‘Synonymatic List of the American 
Seluri, or Arboreal Squirrels’ (Bull. U. S. Geogr. and Geol. Survey Terr. 
[Hayden], IV, pp. 877-887, and p. 905, footnote), in which I accepted the 
two species added by Alston, who in the meantime had kindly sent me 
specimens of S. pusillus for examination. In this list all the forms recog- 
nized by Alston are accepted, but the names adopted by him for two species 
are shown to be untenable. | 
This was for a long time the ‘last word’ on neotropical squirrels. Jen- 
tink, five years later, in his ‘ List of the Specimens of Squirrels in the Leiden 
Museum’,' adopted the conclusions above outlined, except that he evi- 
dently did not know of my ‘Synoptic List,’ and in several instances reverted 
to the nomenclature of my ‘Monograph’ instead of accepting Alston’s 
revision of it. He also thought Alston had admitted too man y species and 
erroneously reduced three of them to synonyms, recognizing only 5 neo- 
tropical species in the collection of the Leyden Museum, represented appar- 
ently by 98 mounted skins and 20 skulls. 
_ It was nearly twenty years before any naturalist again described a new 
species of squirrel from South America, the tendency being for a time to 
i a ee a te 
1 Notes from the Leyden Museum, V, 1883, pp. 91-144; American Squirrels, pp. 91-115. 
