Red-squirrel 315 



*' Evidences of its activity are to be found all through the 

 spruce forest. Its globular nests of grass, moss, bark and 

 refuse are common and are usually situated near the trunk of 

 some slender spruce, ten or twenty feet from the ground. Some- 

 times several will be found in the same tree, and a half dozen 

 or more are very often to be seen at the same time." 



Apparently the young are born about the first of May. A young 

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

 twenty feet up in an abandoned flicker's hole in a poplar stub. 



It contained 5 young. They were then blind, naked, and 

 helpless and had no sign of aural orifice. They measured 

 each about 4I inches long, including the tail, which was i^ 

 inches. While I was up the stub the mother dashed up and 

 down the far side, running over my hands and arms, in her 

 great distress for their safety, quite reckless for herself. 



I put the young back, intending to come again and watch 

 their development. But the mother had other plans for them. 

 She removed them at once, and I did not discover their new 

 abode. 



I saw nothing of the male on this, or indeed on any other, 

 family occasion, and so far as I know, he does not usually help 

 in caring for the young. 



On the morning of May 4, 1906, at Cos Cob, I found 

 an old female Red-squirrel in a rat-trap alive. She was evi- 

 dently in milk. On letting her go she ran up a near tree, 

 in the thick top of which I at once heard a great chattering and 

 crooning as of two or more Squirrels. I suppose mother and 

 family or possibly the mates were rejoicing over their reunion 

 after the long separation of perhaps three or four hours. 



During boyhood days near Lindsay, Ontario, I once 

 felled a dead hollow tree in which was a Red-squirrel's nest. 

 The mother and one of the young were killed by the fall, but 

 the remaining five little ones, still blind and furless, though 

 now late in June, were taken to the old cat with the idea 

 that she would give them a merciful end, and turn them to 

 account. But the cat had very young kittens at the time, her 



