314 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



small Red male with very red tail and black side stripes, trying 

 by personal violence to possess a large dull-coloured female. 

 She '' churred," struggled, and scrambled from bough to bough 

 for several minutes, but he kept his hold. At length she uttered 

 the loud call chatter. An answer came from a hemlock some 

 fifty yards away; another large Squirrel rushed in and put the 

 small villain to flight. 



I consider this incident important, as it showed first, sexual 

 feeling outside the true breeding season; next that the third 

 Squirrel (almost surely a male) still felt a band of attachment 

 for this female; which argues in favour of permanent mating. 



I was further led to ask, Does not fear imply the posses- 

 sion of imagination ? 



NEST- The home nest is usually in a hollow tree or stump. The 



majority of those I examined were in the abandoned holes of 

 the flicker — a bird that provides more homes and safe retreats 

 for animated nature than any other agency in our country. 

 In the district around Kenora, that is, the pine forest, the Red- 

 squirrels build many outside nests. These are a mass of bark 

 strips and roots in the thick top of some bushy tree. One of 

 these that I examined near Ingolf in September, 1904, was 

 about nine feet from the ground in a small jack-pine that stood 

 in a thicket. It was eighteen inches across, fourteen inches high, 

 made on a solid platform of sticks, warmly built of frayed bark. 

 Evidently the roof was watertight, as inside all was warm and 

 dry in spite of recent heavy rains. The chamber was about six 

 inches across and four inches high in the centre. It had but one 

 door; this was on the south and so draped with fibrous material 

 as to be virtually self-closing and quite concealed. W. R. Hine 

 tells me he has once or twice found the litter in these "drays." 

 About Carberry, where hollow oaks and flicker holes abound, 

 these outside nests are rarely seen. 



On the other hand, in the far north, where the timber is 

 small, many such are made, doubtless for permanent homes. 

 W. H. Osgood, writing of the Red-squirrel on the Yukon, says:^ 



' N. A. Fauna, 1900, No. 19, p. 27. 



