The Red Squirrel as a Mycophagist. A. H. R. Buller. 357 



It thus appears that the Red Squirrel is just as keen a myco- 

 phagist in the State of Wisconsin as in Nova Scotia more than 

 a thousand miles distant. 



Professor J. E. Howitt of the Ontario Agricultural College 

 told me that at Muskoka, Ontario, in tlie month of September, 

 he had often seen squirrels carrying fungi about trees, and that 

 once he had seen an Amanita so carried. Sometimes the squirrels 

 fetched and carried fungi with great persistency for several days 

 in succession. Doubtless they were laying up provender for the 

 winter. 



The Red Squirrel stores up fruit-bodies of fungi for the winter 

 often in large quantities. Sometimes the fruit-bodies are: 

 (i) stored in bulk in a hole in a tree, in an old crow's nest or in 

 some disused building, etc., but sometimes they are (2) hung 

 up separately in the horizontal forks of trees. When thus 

 hung up in the autumn, they soon dry and thus become pre- 

 served until the snow is on the ground and they are required 

 for food. 



(i) Storage in bulk. Mr Stuart Criddle of Treesbank, Mani- 

 toba, in a letter to the author, says: "I have often found fungi 

 stored by squirrels above ground but never under ground. The 

 chief places where I have foinid fungus stores have been wood- 

 peckers' holes, hollow trees, and birds' nests — especially crows' 

 nests." Soon after writing thus, Mr Criddle very kindly sent 

 me a collection of dried fungi which had been stored by a 

 squirrel in an old box in the loft of a disused house. In the 

 collection there were 116 fruit-bodies altogether, many still 

 quite intact, but some partially devoured and some represented 

 only by large fragments. Of these 116 fruit-bodies, 22 were 

 Boleti and 94 Agaricaceae. The former weighed 6| oz. and the 

 latter 14 oz., so that the total weight was i lb. 4^ oz. The fruit- 

 bodies were sent to me in February and, owing to this being a 

 very dry time of the year, they were exceedingly dry and very 

 tough or brittle. When being gathered by the squirrel, they 

 must have weighed many pounds. Some of the pilei bore the 

 characteristic marks of a squirrel's incisor teeth. Many of the 

 Boleti, and perhaps all, belonged to Boletus scaher and, among 

 the Agaricaceae, there were at least two species of Russula, at 

 least one species of Cortinarius, a Hypholoma — possibly H. 

 fasciculare, and Lactarius piperatus. Some of the fruit-bodies 

 of the last-named species had been parasitised by Hypomyces 

 lactifluorum and therefore showed only slight ridges beneath 

 their pilei in place of gills. A second collection of fungi sent me 

 by Mr Stuart Criddle from another squirrel's home at Trees- 

 bank was even larger than the first for it contained between 

 two and three hundred fruit-bodies. These, except in their 



