The Red Squirrel as a Mycophagist. A. H.R. Buller 359 



sounded in my cars like a romance and I was somewhat scep- 

 tical. However, as a result of a series of enquiries, although I 

 myself have not as yet seen a tree with more than two fungi 

 hanging in it, I cannot now doubt that trees laden with fungi 

 by squirrels have been observed by others. Thompson Seton 

 writes of them quite familiarly and his observations are sup- 

 ported by others made by M. W. Gorman in Alaska and by my 

 personal friends and acquaintances at Winnipeg. 



Thompson Seton in his well-known book on the mammals of 

 North America writes of the Red Squirrel as follows : 



"The second food supply in winter is mushrooms, chiefly of 

 the genus Russula. If these were to be stored in the same way 

 as the other provisions they would doubtless rot before they 

 could be of service. The Squirrel stores them in the only avail- 

 able way, that is, in the forked branches of the trees. Here they 

 arc safe from the snow that would bury them, from the Deer 

 and Field-mouse that would steal them, and instead of rotting, 

 they dry up and remain in good order until needed. 



"I have seen Red Squirrels storing up these mushrooms in 

 the Sandhills south of Chaska Lake, Manitoba, in the Selkirk 

 Mountains, on the Ottawa, and on the upper Yellowstone River. 

 The Squirrel's sense of private ownership in a mushroom-stored 

 ti-ee is not so clear as its feeling regarding a hoard of nuts it has 

 gathered. 



"During early winter in Manitoba I have once or twice seen 

 a Red-squirrel dig down through the snow to some mushroom 

 still standing where it grew, and there make a meal of it. 



"While camped at Caughnawanna, on September 14th, 1905, 

 I was witness of a comic display of frugalit}^ and temper on the 

 part of a Red-squirrel. A heavy footfall on the leaves had held 

 me still to listen. Then appeared a Chickaree labouring hard to 

 drag an enormous mushroom. Presently it caught in a branch, 

 and the savage jerk he gave to free it resulted in the 'handle' 

 coming off. The Squirrel chattered and scolded, then seized the 

 disc, but again had the misfortune to break it, and now ex- 

 ploded in wrathful sputterings. Eventually, however, he went 

 off with the largest piece and came back for the fragments one 

 by one. 



"The scene was an exact reproduction of one described by 

 Dr Merriam in 1884." 



Thompson Seton evidently thinks that the tree-fork mode of 

 storage is the only kind of storage for fungi resorted to by the 

 Red Squirrel, but in this he is in error for, as I have shown by 

 citing the observations of Stuart Criddle and C. N. Bell, the 

 Red Squirrel often stores up fungi in bulk in various holes and 

 cavities. I suspect, but am not sure, that bulk-storage in holes 



