206 RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



Mr. Norman Griddle of the Dominion Department of Agri- 

 culture has informed me by letter that he has never yet found 

 fungi mixed with the usual winter stores of squirrels but that, 

 nevertheless, he has found " old holes in trees literally crowded 

 with semi-dry fungi which had apparently been stored as they 

 were gathered and not previously dried." He further states that 

 the fungus stores were invariably abandoned so that he could never 

 trace the owner. These stores resembled those already described 

 and may well have been collected by the Red Squirrel. 



Dr. C. N. Bell of Winnipeg has a summer house at Minaki, 

 a village situated where the Canadian National Railway crosses 

 the Winnipeg River, 114 miles east of Winnipeg. This house, 

 after having been closed for the winter in the autumn of 1916, 

 was invaded by squirrels. The squirrels stored cones and fungi 

 in the attic and made two nests in the mattresses on the beds. 

 The number of stored-up fungi was large. Dr. Bell wrote to me 

 concerning the invasion of his house as follows : 



" On opening my summer house on the shore of Sandy Lake in 

 the village of Minaki in the spring of 1917, I found unmistakable 

 evidence that one or more of the Common Red Squirrels, which 

 play about the rocks and trees of the locality, had obtained access 

 to the house, for there were two squirrels' nests in the mattresses 

 on the beds and, in the attic, many gnawed pine-cones and a large 

 quantity, say two or three quarts, of dried fungi. Also, many 

 dried stalks of fungi were scattered about the other parts of the 

 house accessible from the attic. Some individual squirrels have 

 become so tame that they run up the steps to the veranda floor 

 and, holding on to the wire screening, peer in on us while we sit 

 at meals ; and, occasionally, they have eaten crumbs out of my 

 little daughter's hand. At times they are rather a nuisance as 

 they frequently jump from the trees to the roof of the house and 

 scamper about in the very early morning, at the same time making 

 their chattering noise. Closing up every crevice in the roof and 

 attic has effectually prevented them from entering the house 

 since 1917." 



The above observations made by Messrs. Stuart Criddle and 

 C. N. Bell prove conclusively that the Red Squirrel does store 



