362 Transactions British Mycological Society. 



trees by squirrels in late autumn, dry without rotting and re- 

 main good to eat until the spring comes, while those deposited 

 in bulk in holes, although moist when collected, become par- 

 tially dried and, in this condition, preserved by the action of 

 the frost. The fungi heaped together in holes, etc., are put by 

 the weather into a state of cold storage resembling that in which 

 mankind now preserves many of his food-stuffs, such as beef 

 and mutton. The storage of fungi for the winter, by increasing 

 and varying the supply of food, is undoubtedly beneficial to the 

 Red Squirrel and is due to an instinct which appears to have 

 been developed in response to severe winter conditions. 



Mr J. B. Wallis, Principal of the Machray School, Winnipeg, 

 once observed a squirrel which, instead of storing fungi in the 

 branches of a tree, hung up there two chickens. As is well 

 known, the Red Squirrel robs birds' nests and kills birds freely. 

 The killing of the two chickens, therefore, was not very extra- 

 ordinary; but the hanging of the chickens in the forked branches 

 of a tree was a very curious and unusual proceeding and sug- 

 gests that for once the fungus-storing instinct had become per- 

 verted. Mr Wallis has written to me concerning the incident 

 as follows: 



"A red squirrel had taken up its abode just behind a farm- 

 house near Thornhill, a village some eighty miles W.S.W. of 

 Winnipeg. This squirrel had become quite friendly and showed 

 no fear of its human neighbours. One day, whilst visiting the 

 house, I was called outside and here was the squirrel laboriously 

 dragging by the neck, up a small oak-tree, a chicken nearly as 

 big as itself. On looking more closely, two other chickens were 

 discovered, hung by their heads in forked branches. The three 

 chickens had all been killed by bites at the back of the head. 

 The squirrel, on perceiving my friend and myself, immediately 

 seemed to sense disapproval of his thrifty habits and retired 

 rapidly to a high bough from whence he was dislodged with a 

 charge of number six shot. As a really advanced squirrel, he 

 thus fell a victim to his very advancement." 



Summary. The Red Squirrel of North America not only feeds 

 on the seeds of fir-cones, hazel-nuts, etc., but is also an habitual 

 mycophagist. In the late autumn, it often collects fleshy fungi 

 in large numbers for its winter supply of food, and it stores 

 these fungi sometimes en masse in holes in tree trunks, old 

 birds' nests, etc., and sometimes separately on the branches of 

 certain trees. 



