DAMAGE TO PROPERTY BY MAMMALS 47 



low ground near streams into ponds, lakes or swamps. They are charged 

 with destroying browse that would be useful as food for deer in winter, 

 but, as beaver operations are local and deer move about freely in search 

 of food, that charge is not serious. In cool mountain streams beaver 

 ponds are favorable to the development of trout fry, affording quiet 

 water in which they may live until large enough to safely enter the 

 swift, turbulent water of the mountain torrents, and many beaver ponds 

 of long standing furnish excellent trout fishing. In warmer localities, 

 where the higher temperature favors more rapid decomposition of 

 vegetation in the water and the consequent release of deleterious gases 

 and poisons in such ponds, especially when newly formed, they may be 

 detrimental to fishes, a much discussed and partly investigated sub- 

 ject. 4 



In some New England districts where the old cone-and-nut-bearing 

 trees have been logged off, the squirrels, deprived of their natural food, 

 have taken to eating more largely of buds and bud twigs, and are 

 thereby doing a considerable amount of actual damage to young conif- 

 erous forests. 5 On the other hand, squirrels and other rodents are 

 well known to aid in the natural reforestation of burned-over areas by 

 the burial of seeds in the forest floor, which thus escape injury by the 

 fires. 6 



Squirrels are known to be fond of fungi, even partaking freely of 

 some species that are poisonous to human beings, 7 but it is not likely 

 that any serious damage or any good is done thereby. It may be also 

 observed that the Allegheny cliff rats, and perhaps other rodents, have 

 developed the habit of storing fungi for food. 8 



4 Johnson, The beaver in the Adirondacks : Its economics and natural history, 

 Roosevelt Wild Life Bull., iv, 501-641, 1927. Bailey, Beaver habits and beaver control, 

 U. S. Dept. Agric. Tech. Bull., No. 21, 1927 (replacing Dept. Bull. No. 1078, 1922). 

 Lawrie, Beaver vs. trout More testimony, Fins, Feathers and Fur (Bull. Minne- 

 sota Game and Fish Dept.), No. 27, p. 5, 1910. Knight, Science LXII, 590-591, 1925; 

 LXIII, 209-211, 1926; LXV, 525-526, 1927. 



5 Hosley, Red squirrel damage to coniferous plantations and its relation to chang- 

 ing food habits, Ecology, ix, 43-48, 1928. Bowles, The California gray squirrel, an 

 enemy to the Douglas fir, Amer. Forestry, xxvi, 26, 1920. 



"Hofmann, Furred forest planters, Scientific Monthly, xvi, 280-283, 1923. Hatt, 

 The red squirrel, Roosevelt Wild Life Annals, n, 132-135, 1929. 



7 Hastings and Mottram, Observations upon the edibility of fungi for rodents, 

 Trans. British Mycolog. Soc., v, 364-378, 1929. Murrill, Animal mycophagists, Torreya, 

 n, 25-26, 1902. Langham, Squirrel eating Melanogaster ambiguus, Irish Naturalist, 

 xxv, 136, 1916. Odell, Squirrels eating Amanita muscaria, Canadian Field Naturalist, 

 xxxix, 180-181, 1925; Further observations on squirrels eating Amanita muscaria, 

 ibid., XL, 184, 1926. Butler, The red squirrel of North America as a mycophagist, Trans. 

 Brit. Mycol. Soc., vi, 355-362, 1920; Journ. Mammalogy, n, 119, 1921. Cram, ibid., v. 

 37-41, 1924- 



"Newcombe, Journ. Mammalogy, xi, 204-211, 1930. 



