358 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



larger number, resembled the fruit-bodies of the first collection, 

 so that a further description of them is unnecessary. 



Mr Norman Criddle of the Dominion Department of Agricul- 

 ture, has informed me by letter that he has never yet found 

 fungi mixed with the usual winter stores of squirrels but that, 

 nevertheless, he has foimd "old holes in trees literally crowded 

 with semi-dry fungi which had apparently been stored as they 

 were gathered and not previously dried." He further states 

 that the fungus stores were invariably abandoned so that he 

 could never trace the owner. These stores resembled those 

 already described and may well have been collected by the Red 

 Squirrel. 



Dr C. N. Bell of Winnipeg has a sum.mer-house at Minaki, a 

 village situated where the Canadian National Railway crosses 

 the Winnipeg River, 114 miles east of Winnipeg. This house, 

 after having been closed for the winter in the autumn of 1916, 

 was invaded by squirrels. The squirrels stored cones and fungi 

 in the attic and made two nests in the mattresses on the beds. 

 The number of stored-up fungi was large. Dr Bell wrote to me 

 concerning the invasion of his house as follows : 



"On opening my summer-house on the shore of Sandy Lake 

 in the village of Minaki in the spring of 1917, I found unmistak- 

 able evidence that one or more of the Common Red Squirrels 

 which play about the rocks and trees of the locality, had ob- 

 tained access to the house, for there were two squirrels' nests 

 in the mattresses on the beds and, in the attic, many gnawed 

 pine-cones and a large quantity, say two or three quarts, of dried 

 fungi. Also, many dried stalks of fungi were scattered about the 

 other parts of the house accessible from the attic. Some indi- 

 vidual squirrels have become so tame that they run up the steps 

 to the veranda floor and, holding on to the wire screening, peer 

 in on us while we sit at meals; and, occasionally, they have 

 eaten crumbs out of my little daughter's hand. At times they 

 are rather a nuisance as they frequently jump from the trees to 

 the roof of the house and scamper about in the very early morn- 

 ing, at the same time making their chattering noise. Closing 

 up every creidce in the roof and attic has effectually prevented 

 them from entering the house since 1917." 



The above observations made by Messrs Stuart Criddle and 

 C. N. Bell prove conclusively that the Red Squirrel does store 

 fleshy fungi in bulk in the autumn for winter use. The air in 

 Manitoba during the autumn and winter is very much dryer 

 than in England, so that the collected agarics dry without rot- 

 ting or becoming unduly mouldy. 



(2) Storage in the forked branches of trees. When I first heard 

 of squirrels storing fungi in the branches of trees, the story 



