CHAPTER VII. 



ENEMIES TO WOODLANDS AND 



'NURSI!i'Ri:RS— continued. 



VERMIN. 



The Squirrel (Sciuriis vulgaris). 

 The Common Squirrel, when occurring in large numbers, 

 commits considerably greater damage in woodlands and 

 nurseries than may be popularly laid to the charge of 

 this pretty, graceful little animal. The good it does by 

 devouring cockchafer grubs and the chrysalides of saw- 

 flies and other insects is far outweighed by the injuries it 

 inflicts. It not only devours large quantities of acorns, 

 beech-nuts, chestnuts, and the seeds of conifers, which it 

 obtains by pulling the cones to pieces, but it also picks out 

 the hearts of buds during winter, scrapes up the cotyledons 

 of seedlings germinating in spring, bites off succulent young 

 sprays, and gnaws the bark from young saplings and poles. 



Where squirrels have an abundant choice of food in 

 woodlands, their chief articles of nourishment are beech- 

 nuts, acorns, hazel-nuts, and spruce seed, although the 

 fruits of the maple, sycamore, and hornbeam, and the 

 seeds of the coniferous trees, are by no means left untouched. 

 In orchards they attack any kind of fruit, but exhibit a 

 preference for Vv^alnuts and apples. 



The attacks made on buds are most marked during the 

 winters following upon cool seasons in which the trees have 

 not been sufficiently stimulated, with regard to the forma- 

 tion of reserve supplies of nutrients, to enable them to set 

 and mature their average quantities of seed. The buds 

 selected for food are chiefly the flowering-buds, owing to 

 the larger am.ount of protein which they contain. The 



