Quadrupeds. 7417 



Observations on Squirrels. By William Henry Slaney, Esq. 



Many persons are impressed with the belief that it is habitual to 

 these active and amusing little animals to form nests or drays, and 

 therein to lay up in a dormant state, or nearly so, during the greater 

 part of the winter months, and that they have also the forethought of 

 collecting, before the frosts and snows set in, a hoard of provisions, 

 to which they can in an emergency resort until the weather becomes 

 more open and they feel inclined to shake off their winter's sleep and 

 sally forth for food, and even should a repetition of severe weather 

 drive them back to hybernate still longer in their former retreats. 

 This is a very general opinion with many persons, but I believe it to 

 be totally unfounded; at least I can speak with confidence that it is 

 not a general rule, and that in this vicinity hybernation never takes 

 place, but that the squirrels are about at every period of the year. In 

 th^ immediate neighbourhood are great numbers of remarkably fine 

 beech trees, and opposite to the windows where I am writing there 

 are groups and single beech trees, dispersed about the lawn and 

 adjacent walks, of a large size, some measuring more than 300 feet in 

 circumference round the extreme ends of the branches, and upwards 

 of a hundred feet in height, and which, when in full leaf, have a most 

 splendid appearance. These noble trees in general bear an immense 

 quantity of beech-masts, or " nuts," as they are sometimes called, and 

 which, towards the end of summer, from the heat of the sun, split open, 

 and the kernels or seeds fall to the ground, though an endless number 

 still remain on the trees during the winter months, and form, with 

 those under the trees, a most attractive food for many kinds of birds, 

 as well as squirrels and other animals, and amongst the birds none are 

 more fond of this sweet and fattening food than the wild wood pigeon, 

 of which large flocks, containing many hundreds in each, arrive here 

 in the winter months, in addition to those that remain and breed here 

 during the summer ; and in such numbers do they resort to feed on 

 the beech-masts, that during a few months of the winter of 1858 

 I killed upwards of a hundred couples of these most excellent birds 

 for culinary purposes ; and this year, though absent during much of 

 the severe weather, and most favourable time for obtaining them, 

 I have killed more than seventy-three couples. 



"While waiting underneath the trees for the arrival of the pigeons, 

 concealed in a stalking-house or little cabin, and in the hardest 

 weather, when frost is most severe and snow often laying on the 

 VOL. XIX. R 



