_Tamias_ Illiger, J. K. W., Prodromus Syst. Mam. Avium, pp. 83, 1811.
Type, _Sciurus striatus_ Linnaeus.
_Tamias_, Howell, A. H., N. Amer. Fauna, 52:26, November 30, 1929.
_Tamias_, Ellerman, J. R., The families and genera of living rodents.
British Mus. (Nat. Hist.), 1:426, June 8, 1940.
_Tamias_, Bryant, M. D., Amer. Midland Nat. 33:372, March, 1945.
_Diagnosis._--Skull lightly built, narrow; postorbital process small
and weak; lacrimal not elongated; infraorbital foramen lacks canal,
relatively larger than in most sciurids; P3 absent; head of malleus
elongated; plane of manubrium of malleus forms 60 degree angle with
plane of lamina; hypohyal and ceratohyal bones of hyoid apparatus fused
in adults; conjoining tendon of anterior and posterior digastric muscles
rounded in cross section; keel on ventral surface of tip which curves
upward in baculum; tail less than 38 per cent of total length; five
longitudinal dark and four longitudinal light stripes present but two
dorsal light stripes at least twice as broad as other stripes; four
lateral dark stripes short.
_Geographic range._--Eastern Nearctic. West to Turtle Mountains, North
Dakota; eastern North Dakota, eastern South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
and Oklahoma. South to southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
northwestern Georgia. East to Atlantic Coast from South Carolina to Nova
Scotia. North to northeastern Quebec and southern tip of Hudson Bay.