CHIPPING SQUIRREL. 69 



aversion to playing in a ■wheel, which is so favourite an amusement of 

 the true squirrels. During the whole winter they only left their nest to 

 carry into it the rice, nuts, Indian corn, &c., placed in their cage as food. 



Late in the following spring, having carried on our experiments as far 

 as we cared to pursue them, we released our pets, which were occasionally 

 seen in the vicinity for several months afterward, when they disappeared. 



We were once informed of a strange carnivorous propensity in this 

 species. A lady in the vicinity of Boston said to us, " We had in oiu" 

 garden a nest of young robins, {Turdus migratorius,) and one afternoon 

 as I was walking in the garden, I happened to pass very close to the tree 

 on which this nest was placed ; my attention was attracted by a noise 

 which I thought proceeded from it, and on looking up I saw a Ground 

 Squirrel tearing at the nest, and actually devouring one of the young 

 ones. I called to the gardener, who came accompanied by a dog, and 

 shook the tree violently, when the animal fell to the earth, and was in an 

 instant secured by the dog." We do not conceive that the unnatural 

 propensity in the individual here referred to, is indicative of the genuine 

 habit of this species, but think that it may be regarded as an exception 

 to a general rule, and referred to a morbid depravity of taste some- 

 times to be observed in other genera, leading an individual to feed upon 

 that which the rest of the species would loathe and reject. Thus we 

 have known a horse which preferred a string of fish to a mess of oats ; 

 and mocking-birds, in confinement, kill and devour jays, black-birds, or 

 sparrows. 



We saw and caught a specimen of this beautiful Tamias, in Louisiana, 

 that had no less than sixteen chinquapin nuts (Castanea pumila) 

 stowed away in its cheek-pouches. We have a specimen now lying be- 

 fore us, sent from Pennsylvania in alcohol, which contains at least one 

 and a half table-spoonfuls of Bush trefoil {Hedysarum cannahinum) in its 

 widely-distended sacks. We have represented one of our figures in the 

 plate, with its pouches thus filled out. 



This species is to a certain extent gregarious in its habits. We had 

 marked one of its burrows in autumn, which we conceived well adapted 

 to our purpose, which was to dig it out. It was in the woods, on a sandy 

 piece of ground, and the earth was strewed with leaves to the depth of 

 eight inches, which we believed would prevent the frost from penetrat- 

 ing to any considerable depth. We had the place opened in January, 

 when the ground was covered with snow about five inches deep. The 

 entrance of the burrow had been closed from within. We followed the 

 course of the small winding gallery with considerable difficulty. The hole 

 descended at first almost perpendicularly for about three feet. It then 



