The Gray Squirrel E35 
the rules, by a certain date each captain posted in the 
village inn a list of his men, consisting of nine besides 
himself. On the day of the hunt the participants started 
as early in the morning as they pleased, but ceased shoot- 
ing at the disappearance of the last rays ofthesun. The 
hunters then collected at the inn, where the squirrels 
were counted by judges, and the men sat down to 
a banquet in the preparation of which quantity was 
even more to be considered than quality; for the 
men were literally as hungry as hunters, having worked 
hard with only a cold lunch since breakfast. The 
party having the smaller count paid the bill of all. 
These hunts were similar to the wild pigeon hunts 
of sixty years ago, and to the jack rabbit hunts of 
the West. 
. The presence or absence of the gray squirrels, or 
black, which is a color variation of the same species, 
depends upon the nut crop. They are the most 
abundant, strange to say, when the nut crop is a 
failure, which happens about every other year. This 
is accounted for by the fact that contiguous districts 
the fall before were without nuts, and so the squirrels 
went into the adjoining region: where the nuts were 
plentiful. Here there would be enough for all until 
the addition of the young in the spring, which would 
increase the number of squirrels above the normal. 
