ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK STATE SOCIETY. 479 



SUPPLEMENT. 



this motion it worked itself out and dropped upon the floor. It 

 proved to be a very large soft blackish grub with numerous paler 

 spots. It was about an inch long and half as broad, oval, 

 slightly depressed, divided into segments, with its surface covered 

 with small, shining elevations resembling the granular surface ol 

 morocco leather. It had no feet or jaws that he could perceive. 

 On showing him the figure of the larva of (Est r us Bovis in West- 

 wood's Introduction, vol. ii, page 580, fig. 1, he recognizes a 

 resemblance to that altogether more than to any of the other 

 larvie figured in that part of the volume. It seemed from its 

 motions to be a formidable, ferocious creature. He put some 

 damp chip dirt into a tin box and placed it thereon, it having 

 been exposed to the air only about four minutes. It immediately 

 worked its head down into the dirt and soon buried itself, evi- 

 dently understanding what it was about. Mr. Reid brings this 

 box and the squirrel to me. I sink the box in a flower bed in my 

 yard and invert a glass tumbler over it. On examining the squir- 

 rel I find the fleshy glandular tissue of tiie testicles wholly con- 

 sumed, nothing of them remaining but their empty outer skin. 

 Mr. Reid says the fact is well known to hunters, that of the grey 

 and other squirrels killed in this vicinity, at least one half of the 

 males are castrated. It is the current opinion with them that 

 this deformity is caused by the squirrels' seizing and biting out 

 the testicles of their comrades, some of them strenuously main- 

 taining that they have seen these animals engaged in this act. 

 There are some hunters, however, that say they have found two 

 grubs in the scrotum of some squirrels, and they conjecture that 

 it is by these tliat the testicles are destroyed. 



August 22, 1S5G. Mr. Ilurst, Taxidermist of the State Cabi- 

 net of Natural History, informs me that on one occasion he saw a 

 half dozen red S(piirrels {Sciurus Iludsonius) unite in mastering a 

 gray one (*S'. Caroliniensis) and castrating him. He liad so fair 

 and distinct a view that there could be no mistake as to the fact, 

 his eyes witnessing the very work in which the animals were 

 enpjaged. Query. May it not be a llrsh-tly wliicli drops its eirg 

 into tlie woun<l of tlie castrated squirrel, from which grows tlie 

 grub which Mr. Reid brought nie ? 



September 1st, 185G. Mr. Reid l»rings me a striped squirrel 



