A Home Study in Natural History. 2 1 3 



the natives have a proverb that " monkey will take what the pigeon 

 spares," — the stout Rhesus baboon being apt to anticipate the 

 charity of the public by breaking into a store-room during the 

 momentary absence of the proprietor. 



"Patience is proved by trials," quote the pious natives, and 

 that reflection might console the settlers of the Southern Allegha- 

 nies where flying squirrels begin to share the tenure of a woodland 

 farm. Ordinary precautions are unavailing against the talents of a 

 marauder that can dig, gnaw and climb, as well as run and fly, 

 and whose appetite is almost as versatile as his manner of locomo- 

 tion. The Pteroviys volucella is, indeed, as much of a rat as of a 

 squirrel, and I have caught one in the act of gnawing the wing- 

 bones of a stuffed bird. They will gnaw oiled leather, pilfer corn, 

 peanuts, dried apples, raisins, beans, cheese, bacon and bread. 

 Like their larger relatives they make storage nests as well as nurs- 

 eries, often in the very bedroom of their landlord, but their restless 

 raids make it rather difficult to discover their hiding places; one 

 may watch them for half an hour and see them enter half a thou- 

 sand different crannies, as well that concealing their young. Rats 

 have established' runs, and "can be trapped, but their acrobatic 

 cousins are nowhere and everywhere, and would be a more unex- 

 pungable pest than red ants if it were not for their indiscriminate 

 appetite, while arsenic (arsenious acid) can now be had at fifteen 

 cents a pound, and half an ounce is enough to clean out a bushel 

 bag full of the little lunch fiends. The best admixture is cornmeal 

 stirred with a bit of pot-grease. A California squirrel catcher rec- 

 ommends nut oil (walnut oil) as an infallible bait, but for domestic 

 pur|)oses I have found a crushed hickory kernel about equally 

 effective. Mix the pounded contents of three or four hickory nuts 

 with a pint of cornmeal, a few drops of dishwater and a pinch of 

 arsenic; then distribute in teaspoon doses in places beyond the 

 reach of domestic animals, and await results. Where flying squir- 

 rels abound they will soon cease to fly, and abound chiefly in the 

 ash barrel. The first night may be remarkable for their more than 

 usually obstreperous activity, but the next morning their ex-animate 

 forms will be found about the floor in strangely life-like attitudes — 

 petrified, as it were, in the act of racing for the door, and still 

 bearing an expression of considerable surprise. Strychnine is 

 more expensive, besides being less available on account of its in- 

 tensely bitter taste. Felix L. Oswald. 



