AND PAR 

 ASITES 



332 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



COM- The Common Deermouse of Manitoba is found in the 



sALisM same region and has the same foods as the Red-squirrel, so I 

 suspect it will be found tapping the Red-squirrel's hoards, just 

 as the Field-mouse often quarters itself on the storehouse of 

 the Yellow Gopher. 



The cuterehra, which is fully described on page 410, is 

 known to attack most small rodents. I never saw a case 

 among Red-squirrels, but W. R. Hine tells me that he has seen 

 several about London, Ontario, and one or two among speci- 

 mens taken near Winnipeg. In these cases the larva of the bot 

 was found in the scrotum of the Squirrel. 



In the fall of 1888, near Toronto, I saw a Red-squirrel 

 rubbing his anus very hard on a tree as he chattered at me. 

 On collecting him, I found the anal glands and the surrounding 

 region much swollen. Whether this was some disease or a 

 sexual condition or the result of an attack of cuterebra, I could 

 not make out. I have seen it several times since and always 

 in late summer or early fall. Two well-marked cases were 

 September 11, 1905, at a place forty miles east of Kippewa, 

 Quebec, and September 22, 1902, Bitterroot Mountains, 

 Idaho. 



Wyndygoul, August 13, 1905. — To-day I watched a large 

 female Red-squirrel (evidently in milk) energetically scratching 

 her head with both paws. Sometimes she scratched and nib- 

 bled at her body and tail, but the head seemed the chief seat of 

 the irritation. Occasionally I saw her mandibles moving as 

 though eating the victim of the hunt. At times she stopped to 

 seize and devour a hemlock cone, and several times she rubbed 

 her face and neck vigorously on the hemlock limbs, 



A curious sort of parasitism is found among animals which 

 build an elaborate nest, and I have several observations to 

 show that the Red-squirrel is no exception. 



I found an abandoned nest of the species late in September 

 and sent the whole thing to Professor E. B. Southwick, who thus 

 reported: "After a careful examination of the Squirrel's nest 

 I find among the lining: 



" (a) The leg of a thorax and larva-skin of beetle, I think, 



