THE BED SQUIRREL KL.UGH 499 



Some of the nests which I have examined in Ontario and New 

 Brunswick were very compactly and firmly built, while others were 

 somewhat loosely put together. 



YOUNG 



In Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba, the young are usually 



born early in May, but many broods are considerably later. I have 

 on several occasions seen young squirrels but little more than half- 

 grown in September and October, and at Lake Missanag on Septem- 

 ber 6 I saw an adult and five half-grown young on the trunk of a 

 large dead hemlock, in which, at a height of about 25 feet, was their 

 nesting-hole. These late occurrences of young may possibly indicate 

 a second brood, though, if this is the case, it is certainly the exception 

 and not the rule. 



Speaking of S. hudsonicus rlcTiardsoni^ Bailey (1918) says: 



In June the four to six young are born in the big grass nests up among the 

 branches of the trees or in well-lined hollow trunks. For a long time they are 

 naked and helpless, and apparently they do not usually come out of the nests as 

 half-grown squirrels until the latter part of July. They are carefully watched 

 and nursed and fed liy the mother squirrel until they have learned the ways of 

 the woods, and by the latter part of August have scattered out, each storing 

 his own winter supplies or all working and storing together as a family for the 

 winter's supply about the old parental tree. Usually the families do not 

 entirely break up until the following spring. 



Seton (1909) says: 



A home nest which I had found at Carberry, Manitoba, June 24, 1882, was 

 20 feet up in an abandoned Flicker's hole in a poplar stub. It contained five 

 young. They were blind, naked and helpless, and had no sign of aural oritice. 

 They measured about 4i/^ inches long, including the tail, which was l^^ inches. 

 While I was up the stub the mother dashed up and down the far side, running 

 over my hands and arms, in her distress for their safety, quite reckless for her- 

 self. I put the young back, intending to come again and watch their develop- 

 ment. But the mother had other plans for them. She removed them at once, 

 and I did not discover their new abode. 



And, again, speaking of a female which raised her brood for sev- 

 eral years in a box set in a thin hemlock near his house, " In June I 

 often see the little ones following the old one in a sort of procession 

 through the trees. This is no doubt their training." 



Cram (1901) thus describes the young: 



The young squirrels are most absurd looking little beasts at first, like mini- 

 ature pug dogs, blind and naked, and with enormous heads. In a few days 

 their fur begins to show like the down on a peach, and as a fringe of short hair 

 along each side of the tail, which at length assumes something of the flattened 

 aspect of that worn by their elders, but without displaying much of the 

 fluffy, shadowy quality of the ideal squirrel tail until late in the follow- 

 ing autumn. Although they do not remain long in the nest, they are seldom 

 seen abroad until fully grown, or very nearly so, which is rather remarkable 

 when you come to consider the number that are brought up each summer in 



