GENERAL NOTES 
95 
Doctor Fitch, and most of those who have followed after him, have assured 
us that the hot emasculates the host. Does it? The evidence is far from 
convincing. 
1. We have proof that a hot develops under the skin of all of our squirrels; 
that it often appears in the scrotum of the male; but is as often found in other 
parts of the body, and in the female as much as in the male. 
2. No trace of the testes is discernible after the development of the grub. 
Why should there be? For at the season of all observations — August, September, 
and October — the testes are normally reduced to almost nothing and are even, 
as Bachman says (Vol. 1, p. 269), “drawn into the pelvis.” 
3. There is no proof that the bot eats fibrous tissue, or anything but juices. 
4. It is contrary to the known ways of evolution; that any species should 
develop a habit that would tend to cut off its own food supply. 
5. The final proof has never yet been offered, namely — a male, apparently 
emasculated by the grub, kept over till next rutting season for observation. I 
strongly suspect that such males would surprise us by appearing on time, fully 
equipped, with two perfectly good, functioning testicles, that had been safely 
tucked away in their original nest inside the pelvis; evidencing that the only 
harm the bot-fly warble did, was the temporary drain while the host was carrying 
it. No one yet has reported one of th6se squirrels taken in the rutting season 
of its species, and obviously castrated. 
A friend of mine, who had the ill-luck to develop a bot-warble in the calf of his 
leg, tells me that at times, when the creature was turning over, or in some way 
moving, the irritation was maddening. 
The following species are known to be infected by the bot-fly or warble: gray- 
squirrel, foxsquirrel, redsquirrel. Eastern chipmunk, striped groundsquirrel, 
Richardson groundsquirrel, Franklin groundsquirrel, least vole, housemouse, 
jack-rabbit, etc. 
Perhaps some reader has made observations that will decide this question. 
— Ernest Thompson Seton. 
* THE FLYING SQUIRREL AS A BIRD KILLER 
On April 6, 1914, an adult female flying squirrel {Glaucomys volans) was cap- 
tured with her two young and placed in a roomy cage in the workshop with a section 
of tree trunk containing a flicker’s hole as a nest. Two or three days later a fine 
male yellow-bellied sapsucker was captured unhurt, and placed in the same 
cage where he made himself at home on the stump. I was greatly surprised the 
next morning to find his bones on the bottom of the cage, picked clean. This 
strong, hardy woodpecker in perfect health had been killed and eaten during 
the few hours of darkness, by the old mother flying squirrel, though she had 
other food in abundance. While pondering the tragedy visions of the many 
holes in the woods that had been found containing feathers and other remains 
of small birds came to mind, and I wondered if the beautiful and apparently 
inoffensive flying squirrels were responsible. 
Small birds frequently take refuge in old woodpecker holes and natural 
cavities, where they are at the mercy of such a nocturnal wanderer. I am aware 
that flying squirrels have been accused of eating birds’ eggs and young birds. 
