Red-squirrel 317 



Camp, forty miles east from Kippewa, Quebec, on Septem- 

 ber 10, 1905. To-day our guide, Fred Reeves, saw a Red- 

 squirrel carrying a young one in her mouth. She held it by 

 the belly, its legs and tail curled about her neck. It was about 

 one-third grown. 



By October the family seems to have broken up spon- 

 taneously. I believe that one brood each year is all the Red- 

 squirrel produces. 



The true Squirrels are supposed to be strictly diurnal, noc- 

 I never heard of a Red-squirrel bestirring itself by night, and 

 I am much puzzled by this note in my journal: 



Caughnawanna, forty miles east of Kippewa, Quebec, Sep- 

 tember 28, 1905. After dusk, I heard in a fir tree the unmis- 

 takable ''snick, snick, snick'' with occasional "snicker" of a 

 Red-squirrel. This was repeated at intervals all night until 

 10.30 p. M., when I went to sleep. At 4.30 when I arose it was 

 still to be heard. It certainly was not the voice of any bird or 

 of any other quadruped that I know. Is the Red-squirrel 

 nocturnal or desirous of posing as a nightingale ? or was it 

 some note of the Flying-squirrel ? 



Like all the tribe this species has a very tender tail. t.\il 

 If suddenly lifted by the tail when alive, the skin is likely to 

 strip off, leaving the raw, bony structure. This is a serious 

 handicap, as is proved by the fact that a tailless Squirrel rarely 

 survives. The loss seems to limit its jumping power, and when 

 it falls it suffers a heavy jar, from which the tail would have 

 saved it. 



Yet it is a remarkable fact that half of the Squirrels I col- 

 lected about Kenora in 1886 had some injury in the tail — 

 either it was lacking a few joints, or it had an abnormal bump 

 on the end. I do not know whether these were caused by 

 battle, disease, or climate. 



At St. Johnsbury, Vt., a friend of mine (Charles H. Hor- 

 ton) had two or three large trout in a fountain basin on the 

 lawn. A Red-squirrel that lived in the adjoining grove came 



