urus_ (Say).

~Tamias amoenus caurinus~ Merriam

This subspecies was named from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. A.
H. Howell, in his "Revision of the American chipmunks" (N. Amer. Fauna,
52:77, and fig. 5, 1929) regarded the geographic range of _Eutamias_ [=
_Tamias_] _amoenus caurinus_ as the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula
and most of Mt. Rainier. The geographic range of the _amoenus_ chipmunk
on Mt. Rainier almost certainly is continuous with that of _T. a.
ludibundus_ in the Cascade Mountains of which Mt. Rainier is a
westward-projecting arm. There is no contact between the chipmunks of
Mt. Rainier and those of the Olympic Peninsula; those on the Peninsula
are geographically isolated from all others of the species and are
separated from those on Mt. Rainier by approximately eighty miles of
low-lying country, which is uninhabited by chipmunks of the species
_Tamias amoenus_. Therefore, Howell's (_loc. cit._) assignment of most
of the chipmunks on Mt. Rainier to _caurinus_ is open to question and
Dalquest, in the "Mammals of Washington" (Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat.
Hist., vol. 2, 1948) evidently thought that Howell had incorrectly
identified them. On page 256 Dalquest (_op. cit._) defined the
geographic range of _T. a. caurinus_ as restricted to the Olympic
Peninsula and showed (fig. 81) Mt. Rainier to be in the geographic range
of _T. a. ludibundus_. We would accept Dalquest's (_op. cit._)
arrangement without question and also would follow it because it is the
more recent one were it not for the fact that Dalquest gives no reason
for his changes. To allow us to decide the matter we have compared the
pertinent materials ourselves. Catalogue numbers below are of the United
States National Museum, Biological Surveys Collection, and each specimen
mentioned by catalogue number is an adult female which shows much wear
on the fourth upper premolar.

Of _T. a. caurinus_, Nos. 241902 and 241903 are from 2 mi. SW of Mount
Angeles; No. 241911 is from "near" head of Dosewallips River, 6000 ft.,
and No. 241915 is from Canyon Creek, 3 mi. S Soleduc River, 3550 ft. Of
_T. a. ludibundus_, Nos. 234776 and 235018 are from Barron, 5000 ft.,
and No. 230685 is from Suiattle River, 6500 ft. Of specimens in
question, from Mount Rainier, No. 90635 is from 6500 ft., west slope;
No. 232729 is from 4900 ft., Reflection Lakes, and No. 233114 is from
5300 ft., Indian Henrys.

In comparison with _T. a. ludibundus_, _T. a. caurinus_