THE BRITISH OR LIGHT-TAILED SQUIRREL 715 



to a climber balanced at some considerable altitude in a 

 precarious position. 



Occasionally Squirrel's nests are reported from curious 

 situations, as when the Rev. J. G. Tuck found one in a loophole 

 of the church tower of Tostock, Suffolk. Its foundation was 

 an old sparrow's nest, to which a quantity of dry grass had 

 been added. A second remarkable nest, of which Mr Forrest 

 sent Barrett-Hamilton an account, was placed in a straggling 

 gorse bush at a height of not more than 4 feet from the ground. 

 Sometimes an old magpie's nest may be put into repair by the 

 Squirrel, which probably has to renovate its drey every season, 

 although the dreys are built of a strength sufficient to last for 

 years. An impossible situation sometimes ascribed is a 

 -woodpecker's hole in a tree trunk, but clearly such a hole 

 would be too small to admit the body of a Squirrel. 



Mr W. Evans says : " Clean and trim as it appears to be, 

 the Squirrel, like the Hedgehog and the Mole, is greatly 

 infested by a flea, the species in this instance being Cerato- 

 phyllus sciurorum, Bouche, which is invariably present, and 

 usually in abundance, both in the nests and on the animals 

 themselves."^ 



Every Squirrel is supposed to possess two or three dreys, 

 and one of these is no doubt strengthened and repaired for 

 the reception of the young. According to Edward Jesse,^ the 

 prospective mother begins by gathering mouthfuls of dry 

 benty grass, of which she makes a considerable deposit. Just 

 before the young are born, she scratches or pulls the fur off 

 her stomach, and thus makes them a warm lining. 



The number of young varies from one to six,* and the 

 average of twenty litters, recorded in Barrett-Hamilton's notes, 

 from many parts of the British Islands is three. Two litters 

 each summer would appear to be quite usual in the south 

 (though not in Scotland), but the young are most often found 

 in the nests in March and April. Earlier instances are, how- 



' W. Evans, Supplement, Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh, 1906, 400. 



- Gleanings of Nat. Hist., 1842, 214. 



' One litter of six from Ashburnham Park, Sussex, 15th April 1895, fide N. F. 

 Ticehurst. Mr Oldham {in lit) mentions a drey with five young, observed by him 

 near Droitwich on 31st August 1918; above the drey three youiig, belonging to an 

 earlier litter, were clinging to the tree trunk. 



