a i 
where this is ordinary among squirrels by reason of many 
rivers, that otherwise they cannot pass over, also they carry 
meat in their mouth to prevent famine whatsoever befal them, 
and as peacockes cover themselves with their tails in hot 
summer, from the rage of the sun as under a shadow, with the 
same disposition doth the squirrel cover her body against heat 
and cold.” 
Mr E. H. Cuming quotes the old writer, Lovell, that the 
tail “serveth them as a wing in leaping. They obscure them- 
selves with it in trees and use it as a sail in the water, swimming 
upon a bark.” In Skandinavia, according to Alston, it bears 
the character of a tale-bearer, for ever and anon it runs up and 
down the sacred ash tree, Ygdrasz/, which supports the world, 
spreading discord between the eagle seated on the boughs and 
the great snake, Mcdgirdsirmen, which lies in the abyss 
beneath. It is not unlikely that this belief may have something 
to do with the practice of the German peasants who hunt it 
at Easter, and of the English who hunted it at Christmas. 
Simroth attributes these practices to ‘‘ Christian hatred of the 
darlings of the heathen gods.” Apparently the chase did not 
always result in harm to the Squirrels, since Mr Briggs writes 
of Duffield, Derbyshire, where Squirrel hunts were customary 
on Mondays, that after the capture of several they were taken 
back to the village, released, and the hunt renewed. The plan 
of campaign was to make such an uproar with the blowing of 
horns and other instruments that the frightened creatures 
eventually dropped off the trees and were taken. But the 
Squirrel is not always so resourceless, a hunted one having 
been observed, there being no tree available, to take refuge in 
a heap of stones. Mr W. Evans has, on several occasions, seen 
it going to ground in a rabbit burrow when hotly pursued, and 
it has even been dug out like a fox. 
Organised hunts could hardly have been common until 
after the destruction of the forests in the Middle Ages, 
when the woods had become thinner, and the old rhyme 
prevalent in one form or another in many localities was no 
longer true— 

THE BRITISH OR LIGHT-TAILED SQUIRREL 713 
“From Blacon Point to Hilbree 
A Squirrel may jump from tree to tree.” 
VOL, II. PL IL, 
