362 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Hear what Mr Waterton says in reply to a published 

 account of a tame squirrel eating flesh in confinement: — 



" Had the squirrel been wild in the wild woods at the 

 time that Mr Wigton saw it eat birds, I should not hesitate 

 to pronounce that individual squirrel to be carnivorous, 

 because I believe that Mr Wigton would only state what he 

 conceived to be correct. I gather from Mr Wigton's com- 

 munication that his squirrel was .in captivity when it 

 partook of a carnal feast. This single fact at once precludes 

 the possibility of the Squirrel family being raised to the 

 rank of carnivorous animals. The incarceration only of a 

 few days might have injured the prisoner seriously, either 

 in his nervous system, or in his gastric powers, or in his 

 olfactory sensibilities." — Now for my facts : — 



A few years ago, during the month of May, Mr James 

 Hunter, a respectable merchant in Bathgate, upon whose 

 veracity I can place perfect reliance, informed me that 

 whilst walking through the plantations of Andrew Gillon, 

 Esq. of Wallhouse, he observed a squirrel sitting upon the 

 branch of a tall larch. Being near to the farm- steading of 

 Broom Park, and anxious to get it for a specimen, he 

 brought out the son of the farmer, who immediately shot it. 

 To their astonishment they found a small bird firmly clutched 

 in its claws, with its skull laid open, and the brains taken 

 out. 



James Bell, another observer, told me that when walking 

 through a plantation on his father's farm of Carriber, near 

 Linlithgow, he observed a squirrel in the act of sucking 

 eggs which were deposited in a bird's nest, and that when 

 he approached it scampered off with one of them in its claws. 



Mr George Heatlie informed me that, in July last, when 

 resting at his meal hour in a plantation near Bowhill House, 

 a seat of the Duke of Buccleuch, in the neighbourhood of 

 Selkirk, his attention was attracted by the lively gambols of 

 a squirrel among the trees. In the course of its movements 

 it happened to come upon the nest of a thrush containing 

 several newly-hatched birds. Seating itself beside the nest, 

 it took a short but deliberate survey of its contents, and 

 then lifted one of the birds, which it held between its fore 



