NATURAL HISTORY. 



395 



rise to the belief that it is the second bevy 

 reared during one season. In no case is 

 that the true solution. The fact is, the 

 first eggs, or young birds, have been de- 

 stroyed, in some manner and the mother 

 bird enters at once on the moulting period, 

 and if yet early in the summer she will 

 emerge in time to make a second attempt. 

 This often results in young birds at the 

 beginning of the shooting season, that are 

 weak and totally unfit to be counted as 

 game. It is beyond the natural, as much 

 with them as with any other bird or ani- 

 mal that carries its young to the food, in- 

 stead of the food to the young, ff deposit- 

 ing and hatching the eggs was the end of 

 the contract, it would be easily within their 

 reach, but such is not the case. They are, 

 when young, very delicate and need the 

 care of the parent birds, not a few days 

 only, but the greater ; art of the summer. 



F. P. Latham. 



THE MORAL CHARACTER OF THE RED 

 SQUIRREL. 



In Recreation for April, page 315, I ob- 

 serve you challenge the statement of E. S. 

 Billings, in regard to the red squirrel. I 

 will pick up the gauntlet, and give you the 

 result of 3 years' study of the habits of this 

 " Wolf in sheep's clothing." 



He is both a granivorous and carnivo- 

 rous animal. Pine nuts are his favorite 

 food, but he is not averse to stealing a 

 poor little chipmunk's winter store of 

 hickory nuts and chestnuts when he runs 

 across it. 



He is an inveterate egg robber and 

 might very properly be called the wood- 

 land pirate, since no bird's nest is safe 

 from him, either on the ground or in a 

 tree. He will drive a sitting bird from 

 her nest, seize an egg and run out on the 

 bough, where he will drain the last drop of 

 meat from the interior. If instead of eggs 

 the nest contains young birds, so much 

 the better; for reddy is as partial to a nice 

 young bird as is an epicure to mallard 

 ducks. He will kill and eat a whole nest- 

 ful of birds in a day, and be saucy after- 

 ward. 



Where the red squirrel abounds there 

 you need not hunt for the gray squirrel, as 

 they cannot exist in the same locality. A 

 red squirrel will attack and mutilate a male 

 gray squirrel twice his own size. I have 

 never seen this fact set forth in the sports- 

 men's papers, but am sure other sportsmen 

 beside myself must have discovered it. I 

 have shot many grays while in conflict 

 with red squirrels and found them with 

 wounds still bleeding. An old friend of 

 mine has had the same experience. What 

 I have written I have seen many times, and 

 could relate many incidents which would 

 make other sportsmen, as well as Billings 



and myself, expend a shell on the little red 

 rascals whenever seen. 



Long live Recreation! It has been my 

 monthly visitor ever since its initial num- 

 ber. Jack Minion. 



Mr. E. S. Billings, of Smyrna, X. Y., 

 would do well to study a little natural his- 

 tory before he " wastes cartridges " on the 

 red squirrel, or takes " side hunts " for 

 hawks and owls as game destroyers. 



The red squirrel is one of the most 

 harmless of all our rodents, and the idea 

 of its being able to cope with the gray 

 squirrel, which is nearly twice the size of 

 the little Chickaree, is simply absurd. 



Unless Mr. Billings classes the field mice 

 and rats, snakes, etc., as among the game, 

 he will find it hard to prove his assertion 

 that the hawks and owls are game de- 

 stroyers. It is a well known fact among 

 naturalists, as it should be to everyone, 

 that the smaller rodents form the princi- 

 pal diet of the birds of prey. 



Mr. Billings evidently belongs to that 

 much to be pitied class of people who kill 

 every harmless snake that crosses their 

 path, simply because they have been told 

 that the rattlesnake is dangerous, and 

 " anyway they are such nasty looking 

 things!" 



I am not speaking at random, but can 

 prove my assertions. 



L. W. Brownell, Nyack, N. Y. 



Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Editor Recreation: So eminent an au- 

 thority as John Burroughs holds the iden- 

 tical views entertained by E. S. Billings, 

 in his letter on the red squirrel, which you 

 publish in April Recreation. In his chap- 

 ter on " The Tragedies of the Nests," in 

 the book " Signs and Seasons " occurs 

 this paragraph: 



" I have referred to the red squirrel as 

 a destroyer of the eggs and young of birds. 

 I think the mischief it does in this respect 

 can hardly be overestimated. Nearly all 

 birds look upon it as their enemy, and 

 attack and annoy it when it appears near 

 their breeding haunts. Thus. I have seen 

 the pewee, the cuckoo, the robin, and the 

 wood thrush pursuing it with angry voice 

 and gesture. A friend of mine saw a pair 

 of robins attack one in the top of a tall 

 tree so vigorously that they caused it to 

 lose its hold, when it fell to the ground, 

 and was so stunned by the blow as to al- 

 low him to pick it up. If you wish the 

 birds to breed and thrive in your orchards 

 and groves, kill every red squirrel that in- 

 fests the place." 



Recreation strengthens one in the de- 

 sire to live on good terms with Nature. 



What I heard a member of a village nine 

 shout, last summer, bears repetition here: 

 " Keep the good work a-goin'." 



Marian S. Mofrett. 



