Squirrels of B. America. 441 



of New York, where the winters are comparatively mild, it is very 

 commonly satisfied with a hollow tree as a winter residerce ; but 

 in the latitude of Saratoga, N. Y., in the northern part of Massa- 

 chusetts, in New Hampshire, Maine, Canada, and farther north, it 

 usually seeks for additional protection from the cold, by forming 

 deep burrows in the earth. Nothing is more common than to 

 meet with five or six squirrel holes in the ground, near the roots 

 of some white pine or hemlock ; and these retreats can be easily 

 found- by the vast heaps of scales from the cones of pines and firs, 

 which are in process of time accumulated around them. This 

 species can both swim and dive. We once observed some lads 

 shaking a red-squirrel from a sapling that grew on the edge of 

 a mill-pond. It fell into the water, and swam to the opposite 

 shore, performing the operation of swimming moderately well, 

 and reminding us by its movements of the meadow-mouse, when 

 similarly occupied. It was " headed " by its untiring persecutors, 

 on the opposite shore, where on being pelted with sticks, we notic- 

 ed it diving two or three times, not in the graceful curving man- 

 ner of the mink, or musk-iat, but with short and ineffectual plung- 

 es of a foot or two at a time. 



"We have kept the Chickareein cages, but found it less gentle, 

 and more difficult to be tamed than many other species of the 

 genus. 



" RicHARDSox informs us that in the fur countries, " the Indian 

 boys kill many with the bow and arrow, and also take them occa- 

 sionally with snares set round the trunks of the trees which they 

 frequent. " We have observed that during winter a steel-trap 

 baited with an ear of corn, (maize,) placed near their biffrows at 

 at the foot of la'-ge pine or spruce trees, will secuie them with the 

 greatest ease. 



" The limits of the northern range of this species are not precise- 

 ly determined, but all travellers who have braved the snows o^ 

 our Polar regions, speak of its existence as far north as their jour- 

 neys extended. It has been observed in the 68th or 69tli parallel 

 of latitude ; it also exists in Labrador, Newfoundland and Canada. 

 It is the most common species in New England and New York, 

 and it is by no means rare in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, espe- 

 cially in the hilly or mountainous portions of the latter state. It 

 is seen, in diminished numbers, in the mountains of Virginia, al- 

 though in the alluvial parts of that State, it is scarcely known ; as 

 we proceed southwardly, it becomes more rare, but still continues 



