of 



of weather does not appear to be a determining 

 factor in this. During this disappearance they 

 probably take a hibernating sleep; anyway, I 

 have in a few cases seen them so soundly asleep 

 that the fall and fracture of their tree did not 

 awaken them. They sometimes live, temporarily 

 at least, in holes in the ground, but the home is 

 usually in a hollow limb or a cavern in a tree- 

 trunk well toward the top of the tree. Com- 

 monly four young ones are brought forth at a 

 birth. Cunning, happy midgets they are when 

 first beginning their acquaintance with the 

 wooded world, and taking sun baths on a high 

 limb of their house tree. 



Just how long they live no one appears to 

 know. As pets they have been kept for ten 

 years. A pair lived near my cabin for eight 

 years, then disappeared. Whether they mi- 

 grated or met a violent death, I never knew. 

 There was another pair in the grove that I kept 

 track of through eleven years. This grove was a 

 wedge-shaped one of about ten acres that stood 

 between two brooks. With but few exceptions, 

 the trees were lodge-pole pine. My acquaintance 



330 



