348 REPORT OK THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



some more. Salt they eat greedily and also sugar. Beetles they are very fond 

 of and several birds' eggs which I left in their way they, devoured, shells and all. 

 * * * When the actions of an animal are so suddenly varied, so constantly 

 changing and of such interest in all their phases as are those of the flying 

 squirrel, a complete account can scarcely be given. Certainly it is not easy for 

 words to represent the merry, rollicking, don't-care manner in which these flying 

 squirrels do everything. Such a combination of earnestness and carelessness are 

 seldom seen. For they are earnest about their work, and in emptying a box of 

 nuts they seem to feel the great importance of their undertaking and the necessity 

 for soberness and dignity in its execution; but yet one cannot help seeing that all 

 this is but assumed for the occasion, for their eyes, and indeed their whole body, 

 are all the time expressive of mischief, and the little rogues are never so sedate 

 that they do not seem to be bubbling over with fun and to be ready at a 

 moment's notice to engage in any mischief that may occur to their scheming 

 little heads."* 



Like all the other squirrels, these feed on nuts, seeds and buds and appear to 

 have a liking for flesh, and can often be taken in traps baited with meat. From 

 their quick and noiseless movements, it seems probable that they can and do 

 prey upon the small birds which spend the night in the trees. 



The northern flying squirrel is a more hardy animal than the common one, 

 and no amount of snow or cold is enough to drive him to his nest in the winter 

 nights. Like the red squirrel, his curiosity, combined with his hunger, lead him 

 to investigate every out-of-the-way object, and he is therefore almost as much of 

 a nuisance as that hardy adventurer. Even the fact that the trap is baited with 

 one of his captured brethren does not seem to deter him from investigating it 

 and getting caught. 



The remainder of the New York rodents are nearly all small forms and include 

 the rats and mice and the lemmings. The latter are hardly to be distinguished 

 from the mice, and are inhabitants of cold sphagnum bogs, in which they make 

 their burrows, and where there is an abundance of the vegetable matter on 

 which they feed. They are close relations of the lemming of Norway, whose 

 extensive migrations in enormous numbers are well known. There, when driven 

 by overcrowding and consequent lack of food, they start out, urged by some 

 impulse, stopping neither for towns or broad streams, devouring everything 

 they can which comes in their way and only end by coming to the sea, into 

 which they, plunge, still going onward, and are drowned. As far as we know, 



* American Naturalist. Vcl. 7, p. 129. 1873- 



