THE RED SQUIRREL AS A MYCOPHAGIST 197 



I shall here record a series of observations upon the Red Squirrel 

 and its fungus food, made by myself and by several other naturalists 

 in Canada and the United States. 1 



The Red Squirrel or Chickaree, Sciurus hudsonicus (Figs. 71 

 and 72), has an extensive geographical range in North America, for 

 it is found in the woods of Canada and the northern part of the 

 United States from the east coast to the Rocky Mountains. 2 It 

 does not hibernate profoundly during the winter, for on any sunny 

 winter's day it may be seen about the trees in woods. 3 I myself 

 have seen it in mid- winter at Winnipeg in a park and about houses. 

 The Red Squirrel feeds on the seeds of fir cones, nuts, etc., but it 

 is also an habitual mycophagist. In the autumn, it often collects 

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

 stores the fungi sometimes in holes and sometimes on the branches 

 of trees. This latter mode of storage, although of peculiar interest, 

 does not seem to be generally known to mycologists even in North 

 America. 



Squirrels Observed Eating Fungi. Whilst studying fungi in 

 the woods at Gimli on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg, at 

 Minald on the Winnipeg River, and at Kenora on the Lake of the 

 Woods, I have many times observed fruit-bodies of Hymeno- 

 mycetes which had been partly devoured or otherwise injured by 

 rodents. From the appearance of the damaged fungi, which was 

 similar to that described by Hastings and Mottram, I came to the 

 conclusion that the destructive agent was sometimes a squirrel and 

 sometimes a rabbit. 



In the autumn of 1919, I spent many days studying the fungi 

 in the woods about Kenora. There, in the first week of October, 

 Armillaria mellea the Honey Fungus was exceedingly common 

 (Fig. 73), and I noticed that, here and there, clumps of it had been 

 damaged by a rodent. I also found a few isolated, half-eaten 

 fruit-bodies hanging in the forks of branches of trees at a height 



1 Cf. A. H. R. Buller, " The Red Squirrel of North America as a Mycophagist," 

 Tram. Brit. Myc. Soc., vol. vi, 1920, pp. 355-362. The present Chapter is this 

 paper with illustrations and additional remarks. 



2 E. Thompson Seton, Life-histories of Northern Animals, An Account of the 

 Mammals of Manitoba, New York, 1909, p. 309. 



3 Ibid., pp. 328-329. 



