514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



Mushrooms are stored in large numbers by squirrels, which hang 

 them in the forks of trees, and I have seen trees which contained as 

 many as 20 mushrooms thus suspended. Dice (1921) reports an 

 unusual case of mushroom storage : " A red squirrel in 1911 had its 

 nest on a shelf in an old cabin north of Tanana (Alaska). This 

 squirrel had collected a great number of mushrooms and stored them 

 on the shelves. Those not entirely dry were spread out separately 

 .from the others. Every open can in the cabin was packed tightly 

 with the dried fungi." 



Any article of food may be temporarily stored in a crotch of a 

 tree, quite frequently something which the squirrel has partially 

 eaten, and it will return a few minutes, a few hours, or some days 

 later, take it out, and either finish it, or eat more of it and store 

 it again, usually in another place. 



The squirrel's highly developed hoarding instinct sometimes ren- 

 ders it a nuisance about the habitations of man. It sometimes makes 

 repeated visits to corn-cribs and carries off considerable quantities of 

 corn, and I have known a squirrel to carry off most of the grains in a 

 small sack of wheat. Gilpin (1870) says, " The winter camps of the 

 loggers become infested with them. The men scarce left their 

 camps for their work then the silent structure is attacked by an army 

 of invaders; every hole, every crack and orifice is pryed into, an 

 entrance is made, and perhaps half a barrel of hard bread has been 

 removed by these pilferers before the men return for the night." 



CARRYING CAPACITY 



The red squirrel can carry off objects of considerable size and 

 weight. One morning the squirrel that I had under observation 

 entered the pantiy through the open window. There it discovered 

 a dish of boiled potatoes, some of which it hid behind cans on the 

 pantry shelves, while it carried the others up the maple and arranged 

 them in crotches. Some of the potatoes which it carried up the tree 

 weighed a quarter of a pound. The heavily laden branches of the 

 cedar which the squirrel cuts from the tree are bulky and quite 

 heavy, and the characteristic method of carrying such an object, the 

 head being held high, is shown in Plate 4, Figure 1. 



DRINKING 



I have only on two occasions seen a squirrel in the woods drink, 

 once from a pool in a little stream and once at the edge of a tem- 

 porary woodland pool; but the squirrels which I have had under 

 observation frequently drank quite copiously from a saucer of water, 

 and I have also seen them drink melted snow in the spring. This 

 species frequently eats snow in the winter. 



