I TO 
MAMMALIA. 
been unable to find anything upon its habits excepting the following 
account of a female and young, narrated by Audubon and Bachman : 
“ A brood of young of this species, along with the mother was kept 
in confinement by an acquaintance of ours, for about four months, 
and the little ones, five in number, were suckled in the following 
manner : the younglings stood on the ground floor of the cage, 
whilst the mother hung her body downwards, and secured herself 
from falling by clinging to the perch immediately above her head by 
her forefeet. This was observed every day, and some days as fre- 
quently as eight or ten times. 
“ The brood was procured as follows : a piece of partially cleared 
wood having been set on fire, the labourers saw a Flying Squirrel 
start from a hollow stump with a young one in her mouth, and 
watched the place where she deposited it, in another stump at a 
little distance. The mother returned to her nest, and took away 
another and another in succession, until all were removed, when the 
wood-cutters went to the abode now occupied by the affectionate 
animal, and caught her already singed by the fire, and her five young 
unscathed. 
“ After some time a pair of the young were given away to a friend. 
The three remaining ones, as well as the mother, were killed in the 
following manner : 
“The cage containing them was hung near the window, and one 
night during the darkness, a rat, or rats (Mus decumanus ), caught 
hold of the three young through the bars, and ate off all their flesh, 
leaving the skins almost entire, and the heads remaining inside the 
bars. The mother had had her thigh broken and her flesh eaten 
from the bone, and yet this good parent was so affectionately 
attached to her brood that when she was found in this pitiable con- 
dition in the morning, she was clinging to her offspring, and trying 
to nurse them as if they had still been alive." * 
* Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. Ill, 1854, pp. 203-204. 
