THE BRITISH OR LIGHT-TAILED SQUIRREL 713 



where this is ordinary among squirrels by reason of many 

 rivers, that otherwise they cannot pass over, also they carry 

 meat in their mouth to prevent famine whatsoever befal them, 

 and as peacockes cover themselves with their tails in hot 

 summer, from the rage of the sun as under a shadow, with the 

 same disposition doth the squirrel cover her b.ody against heat 

 and cold." 



Mr E. H. Cuming quotes the old writer, Lovell, that the 

 tail " serveth them as a wing in leaping. They obscure them- 

 selves with it in trees and use it as a sail in the water, swimming 

 upon "a bark." In Skandinavia, according to Alston, it bears 

 the character of a tale-bearer, for ever and anon it runs ug and 

 down the sacred ash tree, Ygdrasil, which supports the world, 

 spreading discord between the eagle seated on the boughs and 

 the great snake, Midgardsormen, which lies in the abyss 

 beneath. It is not unlikely that this belief may have something 

 to do with the practice of the German peasants who hunt it 

 at Easter, and of the English who hunted it at Christmas. 

 Simroth attributes these practices to " Christian hatred of the 

 darlings of the heathen gods." Apparently the chase did not 

 always result in harm to the Squirrels, since Mr Briggs writes 

 of Duffield, Derbyshire, where Squirrel hunts were customary 

 on Mondays, that after the capture of several they were taken 

 back to the village, released, and the hunt renewed. The plan 

 of campaign was to make such an uproar with the blowing of 

 horns and other instruments that the frightened creatures 

 eventually dropped off the trees and were taken. But the 

 Squirrel is not always so resourceless, a hunted one having 

 been observed, there being no tree available, to take refuge in 

 a heap of stones. Mr W. Evans has, on several occasions, seen 

 it going to ground in a rabbit burrow when hotly pursued, and 

 it has even been dug out like a fox. 



Organised hunts could hardly have been common until 

 after the destruction of the forests in the Middle Ages, 

 when the woods had become thinner, and the old rhyme 

 prevalent in one form or another in many localities was no 

 longer true — 



" From Blacon Point to Hilbree 

 A Squirrel may jump from tree to tree." 

 VOL. II. 2 Z 



