68 MAMMALS. 



lively inactive in very severe cold. The food of this 

 animal is, more especially in the warm months, exceed- 

 ingly varied, including cherries and other stone 

 fruits, nuts, beech-mast, certain toadstools, and, 

 according to one authority, daffodils, though I never came 

 across an instance of this. True, I once succeeded in 

 inducing a captive squirrel to eat one of these flowers, 

 having read of this strange preference ; but the success of 

 this experiment goes for little, as the animal would in all 

 probability have accepted with equal readiness a - blossom 

 of the Australian lily, such as neither it nor its forebears 

 had ever in the natural course had the chance of tasting. 

 Like all the rodents, the squirrel masticates its food with 

 a peculiarly free movement of the jaws. During the 

 winter, at which season its appetite is less active, the 

 squirrel subsists on nuts which it has stored in holes in 

 trees. In addition to these, its favourite articles of food, 

 the squirrel will also feed on birds and their eggs. This 

 is one of our most active quadrupeds, and, indeed, exercise 

 seems to be essential to its wellbeing. Without, therefore, 



advocating the caging of so free a creature, 

 In captivity. 



it is permissible to remark that the much- 

 condemned revolving cages are not in themselves cruel, 

 since without some such arrangement the animals would 

 in all probability get seriously out of condition. It is, 

 however, essential that there should be a stationary dark 

 box, for there are times when, like all beasts and birds in 

 captivity, the squirrel finds the glare of daylight unbearable. 

 The breeding of the squirrel has been the subject of 

 some errors. In point of fact, it presents no great diffi- 

 culty. Its "drey" or "cage" is built in a 

 Breeding. J J . 6 



hole, or in a fork, in some beech or fir, and 



a number of these bulky structures are found in an 

 unoccupied, half -finished condition. The young, three 

 or four in number, are brought forth in summer, and 

 in a comparatively short time they appear to mate and 

 breed in their turn. 



