LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



in the same way. The fox was undoubtedly 

 caught while attempting to jump through, but 

 the others may possibly have been shot and 

 hung there by their destroyers. 



The colour of the flying squirrel is a pale 

 blue-gray, more or less washed at the surface 

 with buff or fawn colour, or clouded with dusky. 

 From what little I have been able to gather, I 

 should say that the fawn colour is most in evi- 

 dence in southern specimens, which also appear 

 to be the smallest, while the northern ones, those 

 taken here in New Hampshire, for example, are 

 larger and darker than the type, as if approach- 

 ing the Canadian form, which in turn approaches 

 more nearly to the European species ; as if, as is 

 believed to have been the case with so many of 

 our wild animals, the first pioneers came across 

 from Asia by way of Behring Strait to spread 

 southward and eastward through the Canadian 

 woods, and southward along the mountain 

 regions, at last down across the United States ; 



258 



