174 N O R TH E R N ZOOLOGY.
ringed alternately with black and white, and, lastly, tipped with white. There are* three-black
rings on each hair, and the one next to the white tip is considerably broader than the others.
The hairs are equally long on all sides of the tail, which has, therefore, a cylindrical form;
but if the animal is capable of giving them a distichous direction, there will then appear four
white stripes, and three black ones on each side of its vertebrae, of which the exterior of the
black ones will be the broadest, and the whole tail will have a white border. The whiskers are
black, and are shorter than the head. The external ears have a semi-ovate form, and are well
clothed on both sides with short hair. The margins fold in at their base like the ears of a
squirrel, or like those of A. Beecheyi.
The feet are shaped like those of the other spermophiles; the hind soles, for more than
half their length from the heels, are thickly clothed with hair. The claws are black. The
thumb-nail very much resembles that of A. Beecheyi, but the thumb is not quite so large and
distinct as in that animal.
Length of the 'hèad and body
„ head
„ tail (vertebra)
„ ,, with für
Dimension's.
Lines- . , Inches.
Length of middle fore-claw . . 0
| „ from the heel to the tip of the middle
, . hind-claw . . . . 2
Height of the ear, measured posteriorly . 0
41
[5 5 .] 12. A rctomys (S permophilus) lateralis. Say’s Marmot.
Small Gray Squirrel. L ewis and Clark, vol. iii. p. 35.
Sciurus lateralis. Say, Long's Exped., vól. ii. p. 235 (vol. ii. p. 46. Amer, edit.) Harlan, Fauna, p. 181.
The Rocky Mountain Ground Squirrel. Godman, Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 144.
Arctomys (Spermophilus) lateralis. R ichardson, Zool. Journal, vol. ii. No. 12, p.'519. - April, 1828.
A. Spermophiltts (lateralis), lined in utrogue latere luteo-alb& nigro marginatd.
Say’s Marmot, with a yellowish-white Stripe, bordered with black, on each flank.
P l a t e x i i i .
This animal is an inhabitant of the Rocky Mountains, and the first notice of it
occurs in Lewis and Clark’s memorable expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Say
first described it, and placed it among the squirrels in the sub-genus tmrms, I
have, however, removed it to M. Frederick Cuvier’s sub-genus spermophilus, on
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