2842 Quadrupeds — Birds. 



Mischievous propensity of the Squirrel. — The discussion about the supposed car- 

 nivorous propensities of the Squirrel (Zool. 2762) — though what I am going to state 

 has nothing to do with that question — brings to my mind an instance of what struck 

 me as almost a want of instinct in this little quadruped, which came under my notice 

 a few summers ago. Very early in the month of August, or before, some squirrels 

 visited my premises and commenced a most furious attack on the nut-trees, not only 

 before the nuts were ripe, but before they contained kernels half so large as a small 

 pea, or sufficient to reward them for their pains. This devastation was carried on to 

 such an extent that the ground under the bushes was quite strewed with the nuts 

 they had plucked and discarded, and which might have been gathered up by hand- 

 rails. Now I admire the squirrels for their beauty, their exquisite agility and amus- 

 ing habits ; and in return, T am perfectly willing to allow them their full share of my 

 nuts when fit to gather. But in the present instance I found there was no alternative 

 but either to submit to the entire destruction of the unripe crop, or to expel the squir- 

 rels ; and I very reluctantly gave orders that the depredators should be shot, if de- 

 tected in the fact; and one was accordingly made an example of. If I mistake not, 

 squirrels, like monkeys, the nuthatch, S:c., have, generally speaking, instinct enough 

 to discard a light nut that contains no kernel, without being at the pains of opening 

 it. And for the same reason I should have expected that they would have shown a 

 like discrimination by refraining from the immature nuts, which were equally unfit to 

 reward them for their trouble. I must observe that they did not appear to feed upon 

 the w T hite pith, which, as everybody knows, fills up the interior of the nut while the 

 kernel is in embryo ; the pith remained untouched by them ; so that their act seemed 

 like wanton destruction, and an instance, as I may say, of bad economy, which in ge- 

 neral nature is careful to avoid ; it was worse policy indeed, than that of the poor Irish, 

 who were compelled to dig up their potato sets after they had been planted, in order 

 to save themselves from absolute starvation. — W. T. Bree ; Allesley Rectory, May 18, 

 1850. 



[See also Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 329, date April, 1850, paper intituled 

 the ' Ways of the Squirrel.'] 



The Fisherman : a Character. By W. Pearson, Esq. 



There is a certain secluded pastoral valley dividing Westmoreland 

 on a part of its western confines, from its neighbour North Lanca- 

 shire. It is intersected through its whole length of ten or twelve 

 miles, by that pretty little trout-stream, the Winster, from its source 

 near Bowness, to its termination below Castle Head, where it is ab- 

 sorbed by the great watery reservoir of Morecambe Bay. It is not 

 our business, however, at present to describe this obscure vale, its 

 sweet natural woods clothing the gigantic side of Cartmel fell, with 

 its green meadows and sloping fields, its simple farm-houses planted 

 in all kinds of snug coiners. We will leave it like modest merit in 

 its own blessed retirement : it is mentioned in no Guide-book. 



