170 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



hollow trees and crevices in the rocks to deposit its stores in, often hav- 

 ing a peck, and even a half bushel in some of them ; walnuts, chestnuts, 

 seeds of the pine, and different grains, go to make up its hoard. This 

 species, like the gray squirrel, builds its nest of leaves and grass in the 

 branches of some tree, but, unlike that animal, usually resides in it 

 through the winter, although occasionally taking up its abode in a hollow 

 tree, and sometimes in a crevice of a rock. The red squirrel is often 

 found castrated ; the other squirrels are also found in the same condition, 

 but not so often, I believe, as this species. It has always been conjectured 

 that this was done by the old one, and some pretend to say that they 

 have seen the old male in the act, but there is no doubt that the emascu- 

 lation is done by the larvaj of a fly, (cuterebra emascidator. ) The egg is 

 probably laid in the same manner as that of the bot fly of the horse, and 

 the grub taking up its abode in the scrotum, consumes the testicles ; this 

 fact was discovered by Asa Fitch, entomologist to the New York State 

 Agricultural Society. The following are some of his memoranda relating 

 to this subject : — 



"August 13, 1856. Peter Reid, of Lakeville, informs me that his 

 cat, yesterday, brought into the house a striped squirrel, (sciiirus striatus.) 

 On taking it into his hands, he noticed its scrotum was enormously 

 swollen and hard, with an orifice in it about the size of a wheat straw ; 

 and on pressing it with his fingers, he could distinctly feel the writhings 

 of something alive in this tumor. On enlarging this orifice with the 

 point of a penknife, he discovered it was a large grub, lying with its tail 

 to the opening. It discharged, at intervals, three large drops of a fluid 

 resembling grumous blood, mixed with purulent matter. On pressing 

 upon it so as to protrude the tail end of its body slightly out of the 

 opening, it exerted itself to crawl out, forcing its fluids into the part 

 which was out of the orifice, so that it became swollen and hard, and 

 then regurgitating them into the body again, whereby the extended 

 portion became soft and cellapsed, thus pressing upon and dilating the 

 orifice, so that with three or four repetitions of this motion, it worked 

 itself out, and dropped upon the floor. It proved to be a very large, 

 soft, blackish grub, with numerous paler spots. It was about an inch 

 long, and half as broad, oval, slightly depressed, divided into segments, 

 with its surface covered with small, shining elevations, resembling the 

 granular surface of Morocco leather." . . . 



" Mr. Reid says the fact is well known to hunters, that of the gray 

 and other squirrels killed in this vicinity, at least one-half of the males 

 are castrated. It is the current opinion with them that this deformity is 

 caused by the squirrels' seizing and biting out the testicles of their com- 

 rades, some of them strenuously maintaining that they have seen these 



