THE RED SQUIRREL KLUGH 521 



MEMORY 



The red squirrel has an excellent memory. This is shown chiefly 

 by the way it remembers where it has put tilings, even after they have 

 been stored away for several days. Its location memory is, it seems to 

 me, phenomenal. Time after time I have seen it go by the nearest 

 route to something it has stored, take it out, and eat it. I have seen it 

 go to the ground and retrieve nuts when there was to my eyes no evi- 

 dence that a nut was buried there. The most conclusive proof of the 

 strength of its location memory was given by an incident in the winter 

 of 192-i-25. The squirrel had buried nine nuts in the snow on the 

 balcony one afternoon. During the night there was a heavy snowfall, 

 and the new snow lay over a foot deep on the balcony. Next morning 

 the squirrel came, went without hesitation to each place, dug down, 

 and successively brought up the nine nuts. In many cases there is a 

 possibility that the sense of smell may play a part in the finding of 

 objects, but in the last case cited this seems to be out of the question. 



ANTICIPATION 



Anticipation is dependent upon, and directly connected with, 

 memory, and involves the association of ideas. I have seen several 

 instances of anticipation by the red squirrel. On two occasions I saw 

 a white-breasted nuthatch come and peck at a piece of food which the 

 squirrel had stored in the tree ; the squirrel drove the bird away, and 

 then, as the nuthatch flew, the squirrel bounded over to another piece 

 of food as if it anticipated an attempt on that piece also. I have also 

 seen it bound over to guard something as soon as the nuthatch came 

 into the tree. Once, after we had been away for a few Vvceks, the 

 squirrel, as soon as it saw us at the balcony door, immediately went 

 over to a limb on which we had been in the habit of placing food. 

 The ability to anticipate and forestall an event was show-n by one 

 incident. One day I placed a pile of apple peelings and two small 

 apples on a board which projected out over the roof. The squirrel 

 was pulling at a long piece of peeling when one of the apples rolled 

 and was about to fall off the board. The squirrel dropped the peel- 

 ing and seized the apple just in the nick of time. 



EXPRESSION OF MENTAL STATES 



The mental states of the red squirrel are expressed mainly by atti- 

 tudes, more rarely by the voice. Surprise, fear, curiosity, attention, 

 anger, contentment, all have their characteristic attitudes. The 

 attitude of surprise is either one in which the animal draws itself back 

 on its haunches and allows both forepaws to hang from the sides, or 

 else picks up first one forepaw and then the other. In fear the body is 

 flattened, the head dropped, and the tail held straight out. In curios- 



