230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



has not endeared it to the farmer, and the sportsman and 

 angler believe that it destroys game and fish. Add to these 

 alleged reasons for its destruction the increasing price of its 

 skin in the market, and we can see why the "coon" is not 

 destined long to be a great factor as an enemy of birds, except 

 possibly on lands where all animals are protected. 



Squirrels. 



Semper considers squirrels the greatest enemies of "our 

 singing birds, whose eggs and young they devour in great 

 quantities," ^ but he probably refers to European species. Squir- 

 rels compete with birds for nesting places and food, destroying 

 their nests, eggs and young, and are said even to catch and kill 

 adult birds, but this must be very uncommon, as it has been 

 very rarely observed. Apparently there are many squirrels 

 that do not attack birds. At my place at Wareham, Massa- 

 chusetts, battles between birds and squirrels are frequent, and 

 many birds' nests in or near woods frequented by squirrels 

 are pillaged, but at Concord, on the estate of Mr. William 

 Brewster, I have known only one nest to be robbed by squir- 

 rels in four years, and have seen but two pairs of birds attempt 

 to defend their nests against squirrels. There I have seen a 

 red squirrel look into a bird's nest, without any objection from 

 the parent birds, which w^ere close by, but at Wareham the 

 presence of a squirrel in a tree inhabited by birds is resented 

 by them at once. Where birds attack squirrels it is safe to say 

 that there is a reason for it, but where birds never molest squir- 

 rels in nesting time it is probable that the squirrels are inno- 

 cent of nest-robbing. Ordinarily, however, squirrels cannot be 

 tolerated in large numbers where it is purposed to increase 

 birds. 



Red Squirrel (Sciurus hudsonicus loquax). 

 The red squirrel everywhere has the reputation of a bird 

 destroyer. Many people have reported it as eating eggs and 

 young birds. One was seen on my place in the act of eating 

 the brains of a young catbird. Another, taken from its nest 

 in a bluebird box when so young that its eyes were still closed, 



* Semper, Karl: Animal Life as affected by the Natural Conditions of Existence, 1881, p. 59. 



