316 THE NORTH AMERICAN GREY SQUIRREL. 



any food for winter supply j for no provisions are ever found 

 in their nests at that season, and their tracks in the snow 

 cannot be traced to any buried hoards. In fact, it remains in 

 a state of inactivity and partial torpidity in its nest during the 

 winter, and therefore requires but little food, and seldom comes 

 forth except when a warm sunny day intervenes ; and then it 

 has been observed to repair to the open fields, in search of 

 the few dry hickory nuts which still adhered to the trees. 



Contests frequently occur among the males during the 

 breeding season, when they bite and wound each other severely. 

 Each male chooses a mate in the spring, and, in the northern 

 states, she generally brings forth in May. A hole in a tree 

 is the usual place in which the young, from four to six, are 

 born and nurtured. They grow rapidly, and leave the nest 

 in a few weeks. While young, they are often caught and kept 

 in cages, in which they soon become tolerably tame. 



THE AMERICAN BLACK SQUIRREL. (Sciurus niger, Linn.) 



All American naturalists seem to insist that they have a 

 black species of squirrel in North America ; but they have 

 unfortunately applied the name to the black varieties of many 

 different species, and thereby created much confusion. 



However, as black squirrels answering to the following de- 

 scription are constantly to be found there, it would seem that. 



