No other species of North American mammal can show such an extraordinary contrast in color among its subspecies as that between the rusty yellowish animal of the Ohio and upper Mississippi Valleys, and the handsome blackish one of the Southeastern States, both of which are pictured in the accompanying illustration. The distribution of the fox squirrel is limited to the forested parts of the Eastern States. There it ranges from the Atlantic coast to the border of the Great Plains, and from southern New York and the upper Mississippi Valley southward to Florida, the Gulf coast, and across the lower Rio Grande into extreme northeastern Mexico. Variations in the character of the haunts of the different subspecies of this squirrel almost equal their differences in color. In the upper Mississippi and Ohio Valleys the rusty-colored race frequents the upland woods, where the nut-bearing hickory trees characterize the forests. In the South the dark-colored squirrels have more varied homes, either amid the live oaks draped in long Spanish moss, in the mysterious cypress forests of the swamps, or out in the uplands among the southern pines. [Illustration: RING-TAILED CAT _Bassariscus astutus_] [Illustration: OREGON MOLE _Scapanus townsendi_] [Illustration: STAR-NOSED MOLE _Condylura cristata_] In early days fox squirrels were plentiful, but never equaled the numbers of the gray squirrel. They appear always to have been more closely attached to their own district, for we have no records of the great migrations so notable in the other species. Fox squirrels are not only distinguished from gray squirrels by their color, but are also nearly twice their size, commonly attaining a weight of two and sometimes nearly three pounds. They are the strongest and most heavily proportioned of all American squirrels. A deliberation of movement going with heaviness of body is in marked contrast to the graceful agility of most other tree squirrels. On the ground they walk with a curiously awkward, waddling gait, and even when hard pressed climb trees with none of the dashing quickness shown by other species. They often move about on the ground by a series of bounds, and at such times, with broad, feathery tails undulating in the air, present a most graceful and attractive sight. Fox and gray squirrels occupy the same districts throughout most of their ranges, but often become so segregated locally that the grays may be found almost exclusively along bottom-lands and the fox squirrels on the higher ridges, but there is no hard and fast separation of haunts and the two forms usually share the same woodlands.