IIO MAMMALIA. 



been unable to find anything upon its habits excepting the following 

 account of a female and young, narrated by Audubon and Bachman : 

 " A brood of young of this species, along with the mother was kept 

 in confinement by an acquaintance of ours, for about four months, 

 and the little ones, five in number, were suckled in the following 

 manner : the younglings stood on the ground floor of the cage, 

 whilst the mother hung her body downwards, and secured herself 

 from falling by clinging to the perch immediately above her head by 

 her forefeet. This was observed every day, and some days as fre- 

 quently as eight or ten times. 



" The brood was procured as follows : a piece of partially cleared 

 wood having been set on fire, the labourers saw a Flying Squirrel 

 start from a hollow stump with a young one in her mouth, and 

 watched the place where she deposited it, in another stump at a 

 little distance. The mother returned to her nest, and took away 

 another and another in succession, until all were removed, when the 

 wood-cutters went to the abode now occupied by the affectionate 

 animal, and caught her already singed by the fire, and her five young 

 unscathed. 



" After some time a pair of the young were given away to a friend. 

 The three remaining ones, as well as the mother, were killed in the 

 following manner : 



"The cage containing them was hung near the window, and one 

 night during the darkness, a rat, or rats {Mus dectimanus) , caught 

 hold of the three young through the bars, and ate off all their flesh, 

 leaving the skins almost entire, and the heads remaining inside the 

 bars. The mother had had her thigh broken and her flesh eaten 

 from the bone, and yet this good parent was so affectionately 

 attached to her brood that when she was found in this pitiable con- 

 dition in the morning, she was clinging to her offspring, and trying 

 to nurse them as if they had still been alive." '^' 



* Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. Ill, 1854, pp. 203-204. 



