32 
NATURE NOTES. 
with the love we should bear to fellow creatures, we shall find 
that God has not given to us alone qualities which we are too 
liable to consider ours almost exclusivel}\ 
Robert Morley. 
TAME SQUIRRELS. 
H ^OUXTESS AXXA JEN ISON, a subscriber to Nature 
^ Notes, having read l\Iiss Martyn’s account of her 
squirrel (Nature Notes, 1891, p. 169), takes exception 
to her statement that these pretty little animals cannot 
be kept as pets except Avhen confined in cages. She writes 
from Heidelberg 
“ I should like to tell l\Iiss IMartyn that not only I, but some 
of my Sunday school boys and a clergyman in the Odenwald, 
and man}' other people, have kept squirrels quite loose, not in 
cages at all, and that they ran and climbed about freely in the 
woods, and came back of their own accord. Mine at Paggein 
(in Austria) used often to stay away two or three days, but if 
heavy rain came on, he used to come home drenched, and 
would lie quite still while I rubbed him dry. I think they are 
charming pets to have, and I would always encourage children 
to keep them ; from April, when they are just at the right age, 
until the autumn Avhen the nuts are ripe, and then to let them 
run away if they like. If you take one out of the nest when 
quite tiny and let your cat nurse it (if she happens to have 
kittens at the time), it will become as domesticated as a cat, and, 
what is worth more, will be safe from her ; otherwise it is rather 
dangerous to keep squirrels loose where there is a cat. One of 
our cats here has several times brought us in young squirrels 
which he had killed, and very proud he was of himself. I could 
send you pages about my different squirrels and their adventures. 
I have kept them for several years, but I usually set them at 
liberty when the nuts are ripe. I remember spending sleepless 
nights thinking Avhether the poor little thing felt very lonely out 
in the woods all alone for the first time, after being accustomed 
to a warm bed. The last one that I let out here on the Heili- 
genberg came back to me next morning when I went up and 
called him. He took a nut from me and rushed up a tree with 
it. As he would not let me catch him I Avas satisfied that he 
preferred liberty. At Darmstadt, when I was a girl, I put a 
plank across from the window to a tree, and my squirrel went 
every morning for some time to amuse himself on the tree after 
his breakfast, and then came back of his own accord. Once at 
a school concert, when I was to play the piano in Haydn’s Toy 
Symphony, I had to get up and Avalk across to my father, and 
transfer the squirrel to his pocket, as the noise frightened it. 
When skating on the ice I often had him in my muff, and in 
summer he sometimes sat on the top of my parasol.” 
Winscomhe, Scmcrsct. ISIarian E. Comptox. 
