306 THE EUROPEAN SQUIRREL. 



he found one of the squirrels busily employed in plucking the 

 feathers from the head of one of the birds. The next day a 

 young cuckoo was placed in the same situation,, when it was 

 quickly attacked by a squirrel, which seized it under the wing, 

 where it was safe from the blows aimed at it by the bird. In 

 a few minutes the animal had eaten a great portion of one side, 

 so that the air inspired escaped from the wound ; it had also 

 eaten through the femur and muscles of the thigh. The two 

 other squirrels soon joined the first, and partook of the same 

 prey. " This experiment," says the writer, " I repeated several 

 times, both with live and dead birds, and invariably found that 

 the squirrels would forsake their vegetable food for the more 

 agreeable animal diet ; and I believe I may add, that they pre- 

 ferred living prey. On mentioning the fact to the Wiltshire 

 shepherds, they assured me that the squirrels were not uncom- 

 monly seen in the act of devouring young birds, particularly in 

 the copses that intersect the bleak downs of that county. One 

 shepherd told me, that during an autumnal evening he observed 

 a severe struggle between a wood-pigeon and a squirrel, among 

 the branches of a tree, and that the latter, proving victorious, 

 began to devour his victim."* 



About two years previous to the publication of the above 

 statement, of the carnivorous disposition of the European 

 squirrel, a writer recorded a similar fact with respect to the 

 common Indian squirrel, which he describes as being a small 

 and fierce creature, swarming in hundreds about the houses in 

 India, and distinguished by three dark stripes along the back, 

 and a splendid tail of hairs as fine as gossamer. " We dis- 

 covered," he says, " that the squirrels, if in want of a meal, 

 would not scruple to attack the Indian sparrows living in the 

 eaves of the same verandah. One day an unusual hubbub 

 brought me into the verandah of the bungalow, and I saw a 

 squirrel with a sparrow in its claws, and which it would have 

 speedily demolished, had not the other sparrows hastened to 



* Abridged from Mag. Nat. Hist. (New Series, 1839), vol. iii. 



