324 November 1748. 



inches, without the curved tail ; and it is 

 very narrow. The fkin is ferruginous, or 

 of a reddifh brown, and marked with five 

 black ftreaks, one of which runs along the 

 back, and two on each fide. Their food 

 confifts of all forts of corn, as rye, barley, 

 wheat, maize, and of acorns, nuts, &c. 

 They gather their winter provisions in au- 

 tumn, like the common grey fquirrels, and 

 keep them in their holes under ground. If 

 they get into a granary, they do as much 

 mifchief as mice and rats. It has often, 

 been obferved that if, after eating rye, 

 they come to fome wheat, they throw up 

 the former, which they do not like fo well 

 as the wheat, in order to fill their belly 

 with the latter. When the maize is 

 reaped in the fields, they are very bufy in 

 biting off the ears, and filling the pouches 

 in their mouth with corn, fo that their 

 cheeks are quite blown up. With this 

 booty they haften into the holes which they 

 have made in the ground. 



As a Swede was making a mill-dyke, pret- 

 ty late in autumn, he employed for that 

 purpofe the foil of a neighbouring hill, 

 and met with a hole on a fubterraneous 

 walk belonging to thefe fquirrels : he 

 followed it for fome time, and difcover- 

 ed a walk on one fide like a branch, parting 

 from the chief Item : it was near two feet 



long, 



