SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS LEUCOTIS. 225 



nuts that are hidden from sight. A Squirrel will often scratch and 

 ofnaw at a ti^rht box or drawer that he has never seen before, if a 



o o 



few nuts happen to be in the bottom of it. His sense of smell is 

 very acute, enabling him to detect the presence of a nut at some little 

 distance*; hence, though he does not, of course, remember the exact 

 spot where each one is buried under the leaves, he can, by moving 

 carefully over the ground, discover a great many of them. 



In summer, and in winter when the temperature is above the freez- 

 ing point, Gray Squirrels are out in greatest numbers early in the 

 morning and in the latter part of the afternoon ; throughout the 

 winter, except during thaws, they only appear for an hour or two in 

 the warmest-part of the day; and in very cold or stormy weather, as 

 previously stated, they do not venture abroad at all. 



This species is not nearly so plentiful along the outskirts of the 

 Adirondacks as it was twelve or fifteen years ago, and it varies in 

 abundance from year to year according to the condition of the nut 

 crop. Beechnuts and butternuts are alone alluded to here because 

 they are the prevailing nuts. All others are of such limited distribu- 

 tion in the area under consideration that they are unworthy of 

 mention. The nut yield is bountiful here, with great regularity, on 

 -alternate years. This has been the case, without a single exception, 

 for the past twelve years at least. My notes show that the beechnut 

 crop was good in the autumns of 1871, 1873, 1875, 1877, 1879, 1881, 

 1883, always on the odd years, while on the alternate seasons it 

 failed. And strange as it may at first sight appear, Squirrels 

 are usually most numerous during the summer and early autumn of 

 those years when there are few or no nuts. The reason is this : 

 when the yield is large there is a noticeable influx of Squirrels from 

 distant parts, and they, together with those that were here at the 

 time, winter well, having an abundance of food, and breed here the 

 following spring. During the summer and early autumn a multitude 

 of young, now nearly full grown, mingle with the parent stock. 

 Hence ths species attains, at this time, its maximum in numbers' 



