SQUIRREL. 



711. 



The character from which they get the name Sciurus, 

 which means " shadowing 1 tail," and of which the 

 common term squirrel is merely a corruption, is the 

 form of the tail. This tail is very 1 0115;, and it is 

 Usually covered with very long 1 hair or fur, which 

 diverges into two parts on the under side, something 

 after the manner of the two webs of a feather; and 

 the length is generally sufficient to overshadow the 

 whole bodv, when the tail is brought forward curving 

 over the back. Tiie gnawing teeth in the lower jaw 

 of the squirrels are very much compressed. The 

 hind feet have five toes, and the fore feet four, but 

 sometimes the inner toe also appeal s on the fore feet 

 as a simple tubercle ; they have four tuberculous 

 teeth on each side of both jaws, and a small one in 

 advance of the rest in each side of the upper jaw, but 

 it falls out at rather an early age. The claws upon 

 their toes are crooked and very sharp-pointed, so 

 that they can take hold of small inequalities of the 

 bark of trees, and the toes have a certain degree of 

 lateral motion, by means of which they can grasp 

 toward the centre of the foot. 



They are very agile animals, formed for climbing 

 and leaping ; and even when they are in a state of 

 confinement, and abundantly fed, they do not fed at 

 home unless they have in their cage a small mill, or 

 tread-wheel, upon which they can exercise themselves. 

 Their spine is very elastic, and accords well with the 

 ready action of the joints of their limbs, so that they 

 are nearly as nimble on the ground as they are in 

 climbing and scrambling about among the brandies. 

 Their action upon the ground is not running but 

 leaping, in which the elasticity of the spine comes 

 into play at every step ; and their action is some- 

 thing intermediate between that of the have and the 

 jerboa, less of a running action than the first, and less 

 of a set of boundings from the hind feet than the 

 second. Their limbs are all articulated, so that they 

 can be stretched outwards, which prevents that steady 

 motion parallel to the mesial plane of the body, which 

 is essential in an animal which has habitually to walk 

 the ground. But while their members are thus not 

 of a walking character, neither do they resemble the 

 flying extremities of the bats, nor the climbing ones 

 either of the handed animals or the sloths. Their 

 feet, both the fore ones and the hind, are fitted for 

 making a firm plant on a very slender branch, either 

 longitudinally or across. This of course is done by 

 a sort of grasping ; but still it partakes much more 

 of the character of a mere plant than that of the 

 handed animals, and is performed in a correspond- 

 ingly shorter time. Their motion along the small 

 twigs near the top of a row of tall trees is thus a kind 

 of running, and running which is very neatly as well 

 as very swiftlv performed. Their hind legs are a 

 little longer than their fore, but only a very little 

 longer, as their running style of motion requires that 

 they should have nearly equal command and use of 

 all "their legs. In this may be seen the difference 

 between them and the hares and jerboas on the one 

 hand, and the tree apes which have not the tails pre- 

 hensile on the other. The leaping animal has the 

 hind legs long, and the muscular action of the body 

 very much concentrated upon them. The climbing 

 animal has the fore legs lonsr, and the concentration 

 upon them. The squirrel holds an intermediate place, 

 and this is the reason why we consider its motions 

 on the ground more graceful than the leaping of the 

 jerboa, and its motion in the tree more so than the 



climbing of the ape. Their motions arc quite a study 

 in animal mechanics ; and on account of the lightness, 

 the gentleness, and the cleanliness of the animals, 

 they are a very pleasing study. 



The eyes of the squirrels arc very large and bright 

 for the size of the animals ; and there are some ptru- 

 liarities in them which arc worthy of attention. The 

 pupils are large and rather oval, with the largest 

 diameter placed in a horizontal direction ; and there 

 is no colour reflected from the choroid membrane. 

 Hence it is probable that their vision is very keen, 

 and that they can see an object clearly with very little 

 light. They require this, for they have to find their 

 food and also their footing, the latter often very 

 quickly, in the close shade of the leaves. It is pro- 

 bable that their hearing is as acute, for their ears are 

 remarkably well developed, and they often terminate 

 in tufts of fur, which are generally regarded as in- 

 creasing the acuteness of hearing. 



In woods, their chief food is nuts and other small 

 fruits ; but they are also fond of the saccharine juices 

 of plants ; and it is said that, in some parts of the 

 United States, where they are particularly numerous, 

 they do very serious damage to the plantations of 

 Indian corn, by gnawing the straw at the time when 

 there is sweet juice at the nodes or joints. They are 

 animals of temperate and even of cold countries, as 

 well as of warm ones, though the greater number are 

 found in countries which are rather warm, and they 

 do not occur in the mountain forests of countries 

 near the poles, and are but rare in the lower and 

 warmer places. But they abound so much in many 

 places of the north that they are caught in traps, as 

 well for their flesh as for their skins. The great 

 natural forests are their chief abodes, where they 

 dwell in solitude or in society, according to the spe- 

 cies. But even the most solitary of them are usually 

 found in pairs, which pairs are understood to associate 

 for life. Their nests are usually little spherical cabins, 

 formed of twigs near the tops of the highest trees, 

 and with the opening above. In such places they 

 and their young are out of the reach of all quadruped 

 foes ; but they occasionally become the prey of ra- 

 venous birds, when these roam on the wing over the 

 forest; and yet the situations in which they are 

 placed Tender them pretty secureTrom these foes also. 

 Some species, however, form burrows at the roots of 

 the trees. The nests are not accessible, and indeed 

 not easily found out, and so the number of young at 

 a litter is not accurately known ; but we may pre- 

 sume that they are pretty numerous ; for the females 

 of some of the species have eight mammae, six on the 

 belly and two on the breast. 



With the exception of Australia and the remote 

 islands, squirrels of one species or another are found 

 in all parts of the world ; in Europe from Lapland to 

 the extreme south ; in all parts of Asia, Africa, and 

 North America ; and they are as abundant as they 

 are widely distributed, for the woods which suit their 

 economy literally swarm with them. They admit of 

 convenient division into three sections founded on 

 very obvious characters the absence or the presence 

 of cheek pouches, and the divergence or non-diverg- 

 ence of the fur on the tail, from a mesial line on the 

 under part. 



I. Without cheek pouches, and with the hair di- 

 vergent along the whole length of the tail. These 

 are regarded as the true squirrels ; and of them the 

 typical, or at all events the best known, species is 



