16 MAMMALS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS 



Order Rodentia. 



Rodents, or Gnawing Animals. 



Family Sciuridae. 



Northern gray squirrel. Sciurus carolinensis leucotis 

 (Gapper). 



Very common and increasing in number. The best op- 

 portunities for studying the habits of gray squirrels are to 

 be found in the towns and villages. Being protected by law 

 and the fact of their seeking the society of man in settled 

 districts, they are seldom shot at and have become very 

 tame. Unlike the Red Squirrel they do not inhabit the 

 deep woods, but have wisely chosen their homes in civil- 

 ized communities. They live in hollow trees, holes in 

 barns or other buildings, where they build their nests of 

 leaves and raise their families. In summer they make 

 nests of sticks and leaves in the tops of trees or take pos- 

 session of an old crow's or hawk's nest and roof it over 

 with leaves for a summer home. The young, however, 

 three or four in number, are usually born in the winter 

 nests. 



Southern red squirrel ; Southern chickaree. 



Sciurus hudsonicus loquax Bangs. 



This mischievous and extremely noisy little beast is very 

 common in the deep woods, and can be seen at most any 

 season of the year busily engaged in building nests, laying 

 up stores, etc. Their food consists principally of nuts, 

 acorns and seeds of the pine cones. In the early summer, 

 while the young are still unable to take care of themselves, 

 the old ones begin cutting off the green cones of the white 

 pine and storing them under the leaves and pine needles to 

 be dug up in the winter, and opened for the seeds which 

 they contain. I once spent half an hour investigating the 

 cause of a continual steady dropping at regular intervals of 

 some hard objects, and found it to be two Red Squirrels in 



