The Rodents, or Gnawing Animals 



149 



Photo l,it If. P. Dando] [Regent's Park. 



KED-FOOTED GROUND-SQTJIBREL. 



This species has some of the characteristics of the tree-squirrels, among 

 them the bushy tail. 



is usually engaged for several days, spending 

 an hour in the morning hard at work. The 

 noise they make in cutting the sticks and 

 carrying material is heard at some distance." 

 In winter they reside entirely in the holes 

 of trees, where their young are in most 

 cases born. Green corn and young wheat 

 suffered greatly from their depredations, and 

 a wholesale war of destruction used to be 

 waged against them everywhere. In Penn- 

 sylvania an old law offered threepence a 

 bead from the public treasury for every 

 squirrel destroyed, and in 1749 the enormous 

 sum of 8,000 was paid out of the public 

 funds for this purpose. In those days vast 

 migrations of these squirrels used to take 

 place, exciting not only the wonder but the 

 fear of the old settlers. In the Far North- 

 west multitudes of squirrels used to congre- 

 gate in different districts, forming scattered 

 bands, which all moved in an easterly direc- 

 tion, gathering into larger bodies as they 

 went. Neither mountains nor rivers stopped 



them. On they came, a devouring army, laying waste the corn- and wheat-fields, until guns. 



cats, hawks, foxes, and owls destroyed them. 



THE FLYING-SQUIRRELS. 



One of the finest squirrels is the TAGUAN, a large squirrel of India, Ceylon, and the 

 Malacca forests. It is a "flying-squirrel," with a body 2 feet long, and a. bushy tail 

 of the same length. Being nocturnal, it is not often seen ; but when it leaps it unfolds 

 a flap of skin on either side, which is stretched (like a sail) when the fore and hind 

 limbs are extended in the act of leaping; it then forms a parachute. The colour of 

 this squirrel is grey, brown, and pale chestnut. There are a number of different flying- 

 squirrels in China, Formosa, and Japan, and on the forests of Central America. One small 

 flying-squirrel, the POLATOUCHE, is found in North-east Russia and Siberia. It flies from 

 tree to tree with immense bounds, 

 assisted by the " floats " on its sides. 

 Though only 6 inches long, it can 

 cover distances of 30 feet and more 

 without difficulty. Wherever there 

 are birch forests this little squirrel 

 is found. One nearly as small is 

 a native of the Southern States of 

 America, ranging as far south as Guate- 

 mala. 



In Africa, south of the Sahara, 

 the place of the Oriental flying- 

 squirrel is taken by a separate family. 

 They have a different arrangement of 



the parachute from that of the flying- Photo ^ Dr - R - w - Shufeldt] 



squirrels of India. This wide fold of BLACK FOX-SQUIRREL, 



skin is Supported in the Asiatic The fur of this species is as valuable as that of the grey squirrel. 



[ Washington. 



