GENUS SCIURUS. 39 



become acquainted with their habits, build their nests either in the fork 

 of a tree, or on some secure portion of its branches. The nest is hemi- 

 spherical in shape, and is composed of sticks, leaves, the bark of trees, 

 and various kinds of mosses and lichens. In the vicinity of these nests, 

 however, they have a still more secure retreat in some hollow tree, to 

 which they retire in cold or in very wet weather, and where their first 

 litter of young is generally produced. 



Several species of squirrels collect and hide away food during the abun- 

 dant season of autumn, to serve as a winter store. This hoard is com- 

 posed of various kinds of walnuts and hickory nuts, chesnuts, chinqua- 

 pins, acorns, corn, &.C., which may be found in their vicinity. The spe- 

 cies, however, that inhabit the Southern portions of the United States, 

 where the ground is seldom covered with snow, and where they can al- 

 waj's derive a precarious support from the seeds, insects, and worms, 

 which they scratch up among the leaves, &c., are less provident in this 

 respect ; and of all our species, the chickaree, or Hudson's Bay squirrel, 

 {Sc. Hudsonius,) is by far the most industrious, and lays up the greatest 

 quantity of food. 



In the spring, the squirrels shed their hair, which is replaced by a thin- 

 ner and less furry coat ; during simimer their tails are narrower and less 

 feathery than in autumn, when they either receive an entirely new coat, or 

 a very great accession of fur ; at this season also, the outer surfaces of 

 the ears are more thickly and prominently clothed with fur than in the 

 spring and summer. 



Squirrels are notorious depredators on the Indian corn fields of the far- 

 mer, in some portions of our country, consuming great quantities of this 

 grain, and by tearing off the husks, exposing an immense number of the 

 unripe ears to the mouldering influence of the dew and rain. 



The usual note emitted by this genus is a kind of tremulous querulous 

 bark, not very unlike the quacking of a duck. Although all our larger 

 squirrels have shades of diflerence in their notes, which will enable the 

 practised ear to designate the species even before they are seen, yet this 

 difference cannot easily be described by words. Their bark seems to be 

 the repetition of a syllable five or six times, quack-quack-quack-quack- 

 qua — commencing low, gradually raising to a higher pitch, and ending 

 with a drawl on the last letter in the syllable. The notes, however, of 

 the smaller Hudson's Bay squirrel, and its kindred species existing on the 

 Rocky Mountains, differ considerably from those of the larger squirrels ; 

 they are sharper, more rapidly uttered, and of longer continuance ; seem- 

 ing intermediate between the bark of the latter and the chipping calls of 

 the ground-squirrels, (Tamhs.) The barking of the squirrel maybe heard 



