THE BRITISH OR LIGHT-TAILED SQUIRREL 707 
sometimes becomes very familiar, and soon learns to enter by 
the windows to secure an accustomed meal. Even perfectly 
wild Squirrels have been known to climb or enter a house, 
either to escape danger, to rob a sparrow’s nest of the young 
birds, or even, in hard weather, to steal bread. 
Its food is very varied, and includes almost every vegetable 
substance from which nourishment can be extracted. In text- 
books the nuts of the hazel usually appear first in its dietary ; 
but, if the truth be told, they are probably eaten much more 
rarely than are many other more easily obtainable substances, 
such as leaf-buds and tender shoots, young bark, acorns, beech- 
mast, seeds of sycamore, fir-cones and haws, all of which are 
included in every comprehensive list. It also feeds largely on 
fungi (agarics, etc.) in the autumn (W. Evans). Mr O. V. Aplin’ 
has described the actions of a pair of Squirrels as they gathered 
beech-mast and carried it away to their winter retreat in some 
thick firs. He says:—‘As the mast grows at the extreme 
outside of the trees, and only at the end of the slender drooping 
twigs, and usually out of (Squirrel) reach of any of the thicker 
branches, I imagined they had to content themselves with 
any of the fallen nuts. But I found that they ventured boldly 
out into the small twigs, and, hanging on by their hind legs, 
drew the mast to them by their forepaws and bit it off, when, 
with the exercise of the greatest agility, they twisted round, 
and with a quick jump regained the stronger branches. Of 
course, a good deal of the mast fell to the ground, and Squirrels 
seemed occasionally to get quite out of temper with a refractory 
twig which refused to come to hand; when this happened, the 
angry impatient snatches made by the little animals were quite 
amusing. No doubt they felt their position precarious, for the 
breaking of a twig or the slip of a claw meant a clear twenty- 
foot drop, with nothing to catch at: no great matter, of course, 
to a Squirrel when it throws itself off a bough to drop, 
parachute-like, to the ground, but quite another thing when 
taken as an unexpected fall.” 
Whenever opportunity offers, it leaves the woods in search 
of fruit, pilfering plums, Spanish chestnuts, cherries, apricots, 
peaches, strawberries, pears, and bilberries. As a rule it eats 
1 Zoologist, 1885, 478. 
