244 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
The backs were covered with very short gray hair, the bellies were still almost 
naked and had a pinkish appearance, the tails looked like rat tails and were 
about as long as the bodies and were covered with a very short growth of hair. 
The animals were about four inches and a half long, and their eyes were still 
closed. If they had had short tails, they would have resembled young bull pups 
very closely. They crawled about very much like young pups and kittens. The 
mother we did not see on this occasion. After photographing the young, my 
companion returned them to the nest. On both occasions, when they were 
taken out and when they were returned, they utttered a sharp squeak, which I 
could plainly hear with the wind at a distance of seventy-five yards. 
I judge that the four young together weighed nearly as much as an adult gray 
squirrel. The nest was perfectly clean and dry, with no droppings or smell of 
urine about it, and I have wondered a good deal how the animals managed to 
keep it so clean. The young were apparently about a week or ten days old, 
which would mean that thej?^ were born about the first of April. We have had 
steady cold weather through the winter, including the first half of March, and 
only the last few days have been warm and spring-like. I was rather surprised 
to find the young squirrels in a nest of leafy twigs. I had the idea that they 
were generally born in a hollow tree. Possibly some of the readers of the Jour- 
nal can give further information on both flying squirrels and gray squirrels. 
The wooded strips of broken bluffs that line all our plains rivers are ideal 
resorts for small game animals and for song birds and game birds, and I think 
members of the society should endeavor to have game refuges established on 
land of this kind all over the country, where young and old can get glimpses of 
our interesting wild birds and animals. The strip of woods which I refer to 
extends about ten miles on the west bank of the Mississippi north from the town 
of Hastings toward St. Paul. The land is under cultivation to the edge of the 
bluffs, but the bluffs are too rough for cultivation, and the river bottom, from a 
mile to a mile and a half wide, is flooded during periods of high water, and is occu- 
pied by marshes, lakes and strips of river-bottom timber, including cottonwoods, 
soft maples, white ash, hackberry, and elm. 
— D. Lange. 
Mechanic Arts High School, Saint Paul, Minn. 
DATES OF SHEDDING OF HORNS 
Below are the dates on which examples of some of the species of deer, and the 
American antelope, dropped their horns in the National Zoological Park at 
Washington, D. C., during the season of 1919-1920. 
Barasingha deer (Rucervus duvaucelii) December 13; January 29 
Prong-horned antelope (Antilocapra americana) December 23 
Virginia deer {Odocoileus virginianus) January 25, 27, and 29 
Black-tailed deer {Odocoileus columbianus) January 26 
Mule deer {Odocoileus hemionus) February 24 
American elk {Cervus canadensis) March 3 
European red deer {Cervus elaphus) March 23 
Japanese deer {Sika nippon) .March 31 
Kashmir deer {Cervus hanglu) April 8 
