102 
but the fall never seems to hurt them. Every species of tree 
squirrel seems to be capable of a sort of rudimentary flying—at 
least of making itself into a parachute, so as to ease or break a fall 
from a height. Once in Red Cat Wood, a companion climbed to 
the top of a tall detached fir, where we had “treed” one. As he 
approached the animal, it boldly leaped into the air, spread him- 
self out upon it, and with a quick, tremulous motion of its tail and 
legs, descended quite slowly and landed on the ground with safety, 
quite thirty feet below, seemingly none the worse for its leap, as it 
scurried off into the wood. I once saw a very dark coloured one 
near to Holme Hill, and the Rev. H. A. Macpherson informs me 
it would be the northern variety. Squirrels are not so numerous 
here as they used to be in my youthful days, as gamekeepers 
destroy them. They are said to eat game eggs. This I cannot 
vouch for; but they kill young birds, for I have seen them in the 
act. I have frequently come across the nest, or “drey,” of this 
little animal, and remember, when a very small youth, finding one 
built on a small larch tree near to Howgill. It is of an oval shape, 
composed of moss, dry leaves, and twigs, thatched on the top with 
dead branches of the tree. Being rather puzzled to know what 
had built such a nest, we pulled it to pieces, and the inside was 
lined with very fine dry grass, intermixed with fur from the animal. 
Once I got a severe bite from the female while poking my finger 
into one, which made me rather cautious in the future. 
Squirrels are fond of fungi. I have seen them eating different 
sorts. Inthe autumn of 1868, near to Brayton Hall, I observed 
one making his breakfast off the Variable Mushroom (Aussula 
heterophylla), one of the edible species, which, when cooked, tastes 
like the crayfish; and last year, in a plantation near to Newby 
Cross, I saw one running up a tree with a fungus in its mouth. It 
let part of the pileus fall, and I made it out to be the Red-fleshed 
Mushroom (Amanita rubescens). In the Red Cat Wood a squirrel 
descended from a tree, and neatly bit through the stem of an 
agaric, took it in its mouth and quickly ascended, and when it 
found a convenient seat, it coolly sat upon its haunches and 
devoured the fungus, which was another of the edible ones, called 
bof AA » 
