INTELLIGENCE OF SQUIRRELS 209 



gence of squirrels when kept under observation which 

 would seem to suggest that a very considerable 

 mind development, comparatively measured, lies 

 behind intelligent acts of animals higher in the 

 scale. A squirrel wiU, for instance, almost from its 

 birth hold with its hands the food which it eats. 

 It will grasp and handle and use its hands and 

 fingers in some respects almost as intelligently as a 

 human being. Yet it retains till it is almost fuU 

 grown a very curious limitation marking its relation- 

 ship to lower and less intelligent forms of life. It 

 always attempts, the writer has observed, to seize 

 hold of things with its mouth, never with its hands. 

 So ingrained is this remarkable peculiarity that for 

 the first months of its existence the squirrel, although 

 using its hands freely to hold things, will never 

 think of using them to reach things. If it should 

 be unable to seize the food offered to it with its 

 mouth it will think it out of reach, and will go 

 hungry, even though the food be in reach of hand 

 or arm. It wiU never think of using these to obtain 

 the food. 



Squirrels bury stores of nuts and other food 

 during the autumn, but they often entirely forget 

 what they have done, or where they have placed 

 their hoards. This habit of burying food seems to 

 be not entirely a matter of inteUigence with squirrels. 

 It is in all probabiUty largely an instinctive or 

 automatic habit. The pair the writer had under 

 observation would perform the make-believe of 

 burying a nut in the floor of a room. They would 

 press the nut down on the carpet and go through 

 all the motions of patting the earth over it, after 

 which they went away, apparently satisfied that 



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