THE ZOOLOGIST 



.Vc». 721.— July, 1901 



NOTES ON THE SCIURID^. 

 By J. L. BoNHOTE, M.A., F.Z.S. 



(Plate I.) 



In a civilized and thickly populated country, the first of the 

 wild native fauna to fall before the superior advance of man are 

 the larger mammals ; and, although in many cases man has been 

 the loser by the wantonness of his slaughter, yet as a rule, such 

 destruction having been for the general benefit of the human 

 race, one has perforce to lay aside one's sentimental desires and 

 accept the inevitable. Among the smaller mammals, however, 

 no such tale of slaughter exists, and Rats and Mice maintain 

 their existence under the very roofs of man, who is practically 

 powerless to diminish their numbers. That the abundance of 

 these latter is in part due to the scarcity of the larger mammals 

 is to a great extent true ; but as my object is not to discuss the 

 protection or otherwise of mammals, let us turn to the one group 

 which does comparatively little harm, and to the species which, 

 although of diurnal and conspicuous habits, still remains in 

 numbers to enliven our woods and forests — the Squirrel {Sciurus 

 vulgaris). 



The Squirrel, as most people know, is a rodent of arboreal 



habits ; in shape and size it much resembles a Rat, but its feet 



are longer and more plastic, enabling it to grasp with greater 



ease the trees on which it lives. The front feet have only four 



Zooi. 4th Her. vol. V., July, 1901. u 



