1923- MoFi^AT -Food of Uie Irish Squirrel. 8i 



known "stump mushroom" [Hy.pholoma fasciciilare), are 

 readily eaten. Unlike most of the trees above-named, fungi 

 must always have been readily obtainable in Irish woods ; 

 but, of course, they are only plentiful during about six 

 months of the year. 



Blackberries and Bilberries may bo classed rather as 

 dainties than as articles of diet, and I have no proof that 

 they are more than occasionally eaten. 



Some surprise may, however, be expressed that I liave 

 not mentioned the Hazel [Corylus Avellana). As the 

 Squirrel's love both of eating and of storing hazel-nuts is 

 almost proverbial, an explanation is evidently needed for 

 this omission. 



The cause is partly local. In i\Ir. Barrington's woods at 

 Fassaroe, I often saw the remains of hazel-nuts that had 

 been eaten b}-^ Squirrels, though I never saw anything of 

 the kind near Ballyhyland. 



The reason for the difference, however, is that in Mr. 

 Barrington's woods the Hazel grew intermixed with the 

 Larch and Pine, in whose branches the Squirrels habitually 

 fed, so that they had not to leave their ordinary feeding- 

 grounds to go nutting. At Ballyhyland we had no Hazel 

 in the woods of mixed timber in which the conifers grew. 

 There was abundance of Hazel in the natural oak-wood that 

 occurred in the immediate neighbourhood ; but — as I 

 observed in a previous article — the Squirrels avoided this 

 wood, showing that they did not care sufficiently for either 

 hazel-nuts or acorns to travel the short distance (not half 

 a mile) that parted the nearest bit of natural forest from a 

 plantation yielding larch-cones and pine-cones. 



It will be seen from the above note that an overwhelming 

 preponderance of the food on which our Irish Squirrels 

 appear to subsist at the present day is food that could not 

 have been obtained in any of the natural woods of old 

 Ireland since the time (whenever that may have been) of 

 the practical disappearance of our native Scotch Fir. The 

 Squirrels that hved in Irish woods since the extinction of 

 that tree, and before the introduction of the present stock 

 of conifers and beeches, must — if their tastes at all resembled 



