STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 483 



SUPPLEMENT. 



fact in our Natural History which has hitherto been involved so 

 deeply in doubt is hereby satisfactorily elucidated. But what are 

 we then to think of the statement of Mr. Hurst, above related, 

 and much other testimony of the same purport. The act which 

 these persons aver that they have witnessed is so unnatural and 

 so much at variance with everything Avhich has been observed 

 elsewhere in the domain of nature, that no scientific writer, that 

 I am aware, has given any credit to these statements. Yet the 

 testimony appears to be too explicit and positive to be wholly 

 rejected. I am therefore led to believe that these animals do 

 attack each other in the manner that lias been stated; not, how- 

 ever, for the purpose of emasculating their comrades, as has been 

 supi^osed, but for the purpose of coming at and destroying these 

 bot-grubs, the enemies of their race. We know the terror which 

 some of these bot-flies give to the animals on which they are para- 

 sites, and the eftbrts which such animals make to escape from 

 them. The squirrel also is undoubtedly conscious that this insect 

 is his greatest foe; he probably has sufficient intelligence to be 

 aware that from the grub which is this year tormenting one of his 

 unfortunate comrades, will come a descendant which next year 

 may afflict him or some of his progeny in the same frightful man- 

 ner. Hence his avidity to destroy the wretch and thus avert the 

 impending calamity. Future observations must determine 

 whether this conjecture is correct. We fervently hope that the 

 sportsman or other person who next witnesses a squirrel over- 

 powered by its fellows in the manner stated, will kill that 

 squirrel and let the world know whether he does or does not find 

 in it one of these grubs. If a grub is discovered, no doubt can 

 remain as to the object of the other squirrels in making the attack 

 which they do. 



The fact has repeatedly been noticed of the squirrels in our 

 country, that they sometimes become excessively numerous 

 throughout a particular district, doing much injury to the coru 

 and other cr(>})S of the farmer, both in the field and in the bai'n, 

 and that they then smUlenly disaj)pear, so that scarcely one of these 

 animals is anywhere seen. Writers on our Natural History avlver- 

 ting to this fact, say that their food becoming exhausted in the 

 section of country where they are thus numerous, they migrate to 



