470 



IIEPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



to afford a winter home also. However, a hollow tree is generally 

 utilized for this, and sometimes the creatures have a hole under a 

 stump or rock to which they also resort. 



Stone and Cram say of the red squirrel that ''he has more 

 petty vices and fewer virtues than any other beast that roams the 

 woods. He is quarrelsome, noisy and forever prying into the af- 

 fairs of others. In winter he makes a regular business of robbing 

 his neighbors of the stores of provisions they have gathered, though 

 he always has more than his share hidden away at home and zeal- 

 ously guarded ; and in summer he robs birds' nests high and low. 



"Yet one cannot help liking him, for a keen sense of humor and 

 never-failing good spirits tip the balance against all sorts of evil 

 deeds. Even in northern New England the cold is never fierce 

 enough to curb his jollity any more than the blistering heat of 

 July. * * * 



"Few people realize what thoroughly practical, thrifty and in- 

 genious little animals they are, for, unlike most thieves, they are 

 not in any way shiftless or lazy, but are steady, hard workers the 

 year round. There is no idle season for them. 



"Other squirrels live a careless, gypsy sort of life through warm 

 weather, commencing the labor of harvesting only when the nuts 

 are ripe. But as early as July, while the young squirrels have still 

 to be watched over and looked after, the industrious red squirrels 

 begin cutting off the green cones of the white pine, and work early 

 and late burying them, half a dozen in a place, under pine needles, 

 to be dug up in the winter and early spring and opened for the 

 seeds they contain. 



"By the time the business of gathering the pine cones is over 

 for the season, the nuts and acorns are beginning to ripen, and 

 there are fall apples to be picked and stored in the hollow trees, 

 for the red squirrel is firm in exacting the tithe of the farmers and 

 looks after the collecting of it himself. In the matter of corn, how- 

 ever, he prefers to wait until the farmer has gathered it into his 

 bin, when the scpiirrel can generally get it without much loss of 

 time." 



Genus Tamias Illigei'. 



Taniias Illiger, I'rodromus Syst. Mam. et avium, p. 1811. 



Dental Formula.^!, C, IJi;;; Pm, M, lli; - 20. 



Generic characlcrs. — Size small For a s(|uirr"el ; tail slender and 

 not very bushy; back striix'd with \\\{\ lines of blackish and two 

 of whitish on a ground color of brown ; but four cheek teeth on 



