SQUIRRELS AND SQUIRREL HUNTING. 219 



said by the older naturalists and lovers of the woods. 

 Part of the instruction for fly-making, as given by 

 Izaak Walton, included the fur from a squirrel's tall. 

 I have happened, too, upon some quaint observations 

 on squirrels in two old and long-forgotten writers of 

 the. sixteenth century, and, besides being curious and 

 unmodern in style and point of view, they really show 

 quite a correct knowledge of our little furry brothers. 

 Linschoten, a traveler, says of the gray squirrels in 

 India that, besides being destructive, they "have a taile 

 like the penner of an ink-horne, and grayish speckled 

 haire: they are pretie beasts to keep and to passe the 

 time withall." And old Topsell, quite an observer for 

 his day, speaking of their nests, says : 



"In summer time they gather together abundance of fruits 

 and nuttes for winter, even so much as their little dray [old 

 word for nest] will holde and containe, which they carrie in 

 their mouthes, and they lodge manie times two together, a 

 male and a female (as I suppose). They sleep a great part 

 of the winter like the Alpine mouse, and very soundly, for I 

 have seen when no noise of hunters could wake them with 

 their cries, beating their nests on the outside, and shooting 

 boltes and arrowes through it, until it were pulled asunder, 

 wherein many times they are found before they be awaked. 

 They growe exceeding tame and familiar to men if they be 

 accustomed and taken when they are young, for they runne up 

 to mens shoulders, and they will oftentimes sit upon their 

 handes, creep into their pockets for nuttes, goe out of doores, 

 and returne home againe ; but if they be taken alive, being 

 olde, when once they get loose, they will never return home 

 againe. They are very harmefuU, and will eat all manner of 

 woolen garments, and if it were not for that discommodity. 



