FOUR-FOOTED FORESTERS THE SQUIRRELS 



39 



and feed on squirrels to a certain extent. With very little 

 encouragement they will soon learn to pay you frequent 

 visits in your room, if you will only leave a window 

 open for them within jumping distance of their treetop, 

 a few nuts or a piece of cake quickly overcoming their 

 shyness; in fact, they often prove to be something of a 

 nuisance about the house. Even in places where they 

 are looked upon as legitimate game, they lose much of 

 their fear of man during the closed season of spring 

 and summer." 



There are many instances on record of a number of 

 squirrels occupying the same hollow in a tree; in fact, 

 when surprised in the woods, as many as five may be 

 seen to scamper for the same hole in some big hickory 

 or oak, every one of them getting into it in a hurry. 

 Whether it is a 

 pair and their 

 nearly full- 

 grown young 

 ones it is often 

 difficult to tell, 

 as the latter, at 

 that time of 

 the year, are 

 very similar in 

 size and color 

 to their par- 

 ents. 



So numerous 

 were the gray 

 squirrels in the 

 years gone by, 

 that in some 

 States prem- 

 iums had to be 

 offered to as- 

 sist in extermi- 

 nating them, or 

 at least greatly 

 reducing their 

 numbers. For 

 instance, as long ago as 1749 they much annoyed the 

 people of western Pennsylvania ; the government offered 

 three pence a head for them, and through this means no 

 fewer than 640,000 were destroyed. 



Of late years there seems to be no record of a migra- 

 tion of gray squirrels; but fifty or sixty years ago and 

 doubtless later such things were not uncommon. They 

 usually occurred in the West, and were truly remark- 

 able phenomena to behold. Thousands upon thousands 

 of these animals would congregate a great, rolling, 

 gray sea of animal life supplied by all the forest regions 

 for miles around. In spite of their strong love for the 

 forests where they were born and grew up, and their 

 dread of water, they would commence moving off to 

 some other region. Away they went, over farms and 

 prairies and through the forests, consuming everything 

 in their way that could possibly be eaten, until some 

 river or stream interrupted their onward course. It 



mattered little then how wide or how deep this river 

 was cross it they must in their intense impulse to 

 migrate. The Ohio has been the scene of many such 

 crossings. Upon arriving at its bank, those leading the 

 mass would run up and down and swarm into neighbor- 

 ing trees; but finally, in spite of being, perhaps, among 

 the most indifferent swimmers in the animal world, 

 pressed from behind by the legion of their advanc- 

 ing companions they take to water. They rather 

 wriggle than swim, with only their noses out of water. 

 Hundreds of their number drown, and their lifeless 

 bodies, massed together, float down the stream. The 

 sight is most extraordinary, and can only be compared 

 with the migration of the lemmings, so familiar to those 

 who know anything of the life-history of those animals. 



As the gray 

 squirrels reach 

 the other side 

 of the river 

 or rather such 

 of them as do 

 they are al- 

 most complete- 

 ly exhausted, 

 and hardly able 

 to drag them- 

 selves upon the 

 bank. They are 

 fortunate, in- 

 deed, if doz- 

 ens of men and 

 boys have not 

 gotten wind of 



their 



coming, 



LIKE A SQUIRREL'S TEETH 



Skull of a Coypu that died in the National "Zoo" at Washington, several years ago 



These last, described in the text, are an exaggeration of what we find in all squirrels. 



Fig. 3. 



mous incisor teeth 



Note its enor- 



and on hand to 

 meet them with 

 clubs and sticks, 

 to d i s p a tch 

 them as fast as 

 they land. 

 It is difficult 



to ascertain the cause or causes responsible for bringing 

 about one of these migrations. Possibly it is an impulse 

 to seek new regions where food is more plentiful, it 

 having become nearly exhausted in the country they 

 leave by common consent. The explanation may lie 

 deeper than this, and such migrations date back to a 

 time in geologic history, when other and entirely 

 different causes brought them about, the descendants 

 doing nothing more than their early ancestors were 

 compelled to do, the common instinct still being 

 persistent. 



In various parts of the country a coal black squirrel 

 is met with ; it is but a melanistic variety of the gray, and 

 it is now becoming quite rare. They are about the same 

 size as the gray squirrel and have similar habits ; indeed, 

 in old times and perhaps still in some regions, the 

 "blacks" and the "grays" are found inhabiting the same 

 stretches of timber, and even living in the same trees. 



