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. 



