170 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



dexterously unshelling the kernel, from which it even removes 

 the outer pellicle before munching it. It does not reside 

 entirely on trees, but frequently resorts to the ground, where it 

 moves with nearly equal agility, leaping like a rabbit. The 

 female produces three or four young ones about Midsummer, 

 which are deposited in a nest, formed of moss, fibrous roots, 

 grass, and leaves, curiously interwoven, and placed in a hole,* 

 or in the fork between two large branches. 



" In autumn it lays up a store of provisions for winter, but 

 usually in an irregular manner, depositing nuts in different 

 places in the ground, and in holes in trees. When the cold 

 weather commences, it becomes less active, and often dozes 

 for days in its retreat, but it does not become completely 

 torpid; and I have seen it abroad in the midst of a most, 

 severe snow-storm. If the weather be comparatively mild, it 

 exhibits its usual activity, feeding on ba.k and twigs." 



The latter sentences of this account show conclusively that it 

 has long been a well-known fact that Squirrels do not hibernate 

 in the proper sense of the word, and, therefore, render super- 

 fluous a notice of a discussion which recently took place on 

 this subject in the pages of the Zoologist. One observer, 

 quoted by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, states that even, 

 during the severe snow-storms in the spring of 1881, Squirrels 

 never failed to pay their accustomed daily visits to his house in 

 Cumberland ; while a second mentions that in the same county 

 he would feel sure of finding traces of these animals whenever 

 snow lies on the ground, adding that they dread damp and wet 

 far more than cold. 



That the Squirrel is decidedly a harmful creature to the 

 owners of plantations, must, we think, be admitted; since the 



* With reference to this remark, Mr. Trevor-Battye writes : — " This, in 

 my experience, is not an unusual position for a nest, but a fir-tree bough is 

 much the commonest situation, though the nest is often fo"nd in a fork, 

 where the branches of a beech-tree separate off," 



