88 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
rule, not large enough to admit the body of a Squirrel, if indeed 
they ever are. Indeed, as Prof. Newton adds, I doubt if even the 
nesting-holes of Picus viridis are sufficiently large to admit the 
body of a Squirrel. Moreover, I have good reason to believe 
that the taste acquired by the quadruped for birds’ eggs is not a 
general one, but only acquired by comparatively few individuals, 
much blame having attached to it from a judgment founded upon 
isolated instances which have come under the notice of a— 
comparatively speaking—small number of observers. There is 
some evidence of the taste being acquired, in the first instance, 
from the inquisitiveness of the animal which leads it to carry to 
its “dray” any unusual-looking objects. Birds’ heads and wings 
have been found in Squirrels “ drays,” and the conclusion has 
been drawn—I think somewhat hastily—that they were brought 
there solely for the purposes of food. It is more likely that some 
truly carnivorous animal—such as a Stoat or Weasel—had killed 
the bird, and, when it finished its meal and retired, left the head. 
The Squirrel, from sheer curiosity, descended and carried off the 
fragments. Squirrels, as has been well ascertained, eat Fungi of 
several species, but there are others which, although it does not 
eat, it carries up trees and sticks into clefts of the branches. I 
have collected much evidence in support of this fact. I agree 
also with the opinion expressed by several correspondents— 
notably Captain Dunbar Brander, of Pitgaveny, who lives in the 
centre of. the district, where the prejudice against the Squirrel is 
perhaps strongest, that:—‘‘Some few Squirrels have learned 
that eggs are good, and will destroy them; the great majority do 
not. One dog in ten will eat an unbroken egg; one cat in fifty 
has found out that eggs can be broken. ‘There is nothing a cat 
likes more than an egg, but it must be broken for her. 
Though often trapped with an egg, that proves nothing. Salinas 
are inquisitive. . . . . . Birds are not generally afraid of a 
Squirrel, nor—eacept in isolated instances--do they give battle to 
or attack Squirrels, though these isolated instances, coming under 
an observer's notice, are very liable perhaps to cause him to 
judge ill of the species collectively.” 
The published references to the “ carnivorous and oophilous 
propensities of the Squirrel” are very numerous, and would fill 
some pages of ‘The Zoologist.’ It is not my object here to 
discuss further this general accusation, bnt rather to shield the 
“ce 
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