Flying Squirrel 
serve them well at imitating the fungus growth or the bark of a dead 
tree. Such protective copying is to be seen all through the woods. 
On the same trees I noticed small, dull-white, half-moon-shaped 
patches of fungus, and on closer inspection found that fully two-thirds 
of them were moths flattened against the under sides of the branches 
to avoid the drip of the rain. 
Unless disturbed, Flying Squirrels pass the day asleep in their 
warm nests, generally in some deserted Woodpecker’s hole or natural 
cavity in a decayed tree-trunk, though they are quite ready when 
opportunity offers to establish themselves in holes about the eaves or 
in the garret of the farm-house. The cold winter months seem also 
to be passed in the same way, if, indeed, the little animals are not 
entirely torpid at this season. 
During the milder parts of the year they come forth about dusk, 
and, so far as we know, their activity continues throughout the night. 
From tree to tree they go in pursuit of food or chasing one another 
about in pure enjoyment of life and motion. Alighting upon a tree- 
trunk they always go upward, scrambling and jumping until they 
reach the topmost branches, when they launch forth in their parachute- 
like descent, their legs stretched out to the utmost, so as to extend the 
folds of skin on either side, to which they owe their power of sailing. 
Flight it cannot properly be called, since they can only glide down- 
ward until just about to come to rest, when by a deflection of the 
body they are enabled through their momentum to shoot up diag- 
onally a few inches and grasp the tree-trunk, ready for another climb. 
They sometimes cover long distances when they start from a consid- 
erable altitude, and Doctor Bachman states that he has seen them sail 
from the top of one tree to the base of another fifty yards away. 
The young are reared in the nests and vary in number from two 
to four. Doctor Merriam has found them in the Adirondacks half- 
grown by the end of April. 
In their food Flying Squirrels are not very particular. They sub- 
sist mainly upon nuts, and, from Doctor Merriam’s experience, seem 
to prefer acorns, hazel and beech nuts. Insects, he states, particu- 
larly beetles, do not go amiss, and they are also known to eat portions 
of dead birds. Some of these little animals regularly find their way 
into our cabin in the pine woods of New Jersey, and here they vary 
their diet to a considerable degree, sharing with the White-footed 
Mice any scraps of victuals that may be left exposed. 
As pets Flying Squirrels are exceedingly gentle and affectionate 
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