6 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
he considers representative of the flying-squirrel 
type, as far back as the Jurassic. I have read of 
a Mexican squirrel that was thrown from a cliff 
several hundred feet high, as an experiment, which 
spread its body and settled easily to a safe alight- 
ing upon the ground. 
Dr. C. C. Abbott notes that a certain sycamore 
near his home on the Delaware was avoided by 
the squirrels, and accounts for it by the supposi- 
tion that its scaly bark caused them too many 
falls; but they are incessantly climbing the shag- 
bark hickories, — far worse than the buttonball in 
the matter of roughness. The latter tree, however, 
rewards them in nuts, while the sycamore had 
nothing to give them, and the truth probably is 
that Abbott’s squirrels were wise enough not to 
inconvenience themselves for nothing. 
The spring and early summer is most uniformly 
the season of reproduction, and this is the period 
when we see least of our pets. The mothers are 
awaiting the birth of their annual, or perhaps semi- 
annual broods, and spend most of their time at rest 
in their homes, while all the males of the grove go 
wandering away to visit other temporary bachelors. 
To call them all temporary husbands, would be 
nearer truth, however, for, so far as we can dis- 
cover, the mating is only for a single season, and 
as soon as gestation begins, the mothers become 
vixenish, and not only turn their husbands out-of- 
doors, but expel them from the premises. 
