178 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY, 
nasties when the winter season comes, and retires within the hol- 
low of an old oak to enjoy in a sweet quietude the fortune (heap of 
nuts) which he has gathered. 
The flying squirrel belongs to America and to Australia. I had 
once two of these charming little creatures from Virginia ; they 
used to be very fond of that dessert dish called four beggars, and 
they never forgot to levy on the fruit service every day, a certain 
quantity of almonds and filberts, which they carried off to hide be- 
hind an old papering, at the bottom of which they had pierced an 
opening, and chosen there their winter dwelling. 
[I also have reared and kept these little pets ; they were very 
common thirty miles west of Philadelphia, where I passed some 
years at school, and it was one of the favorite amusements of our 
holiday afternoons to catch them. One Saturday we found a nest 
by observing the entrance of the mother, and captured her, to- 
gether with four little ones, hardly more than a day old. By 
some awkwardness, the mother escaped on our way home, and the 
little naked creatures, whose eyes did not open for several days 
after, were left to be brought up by hand. They did not refuse 
the milk we gave them ; but next day, foraging again, we had the 
good fortune to capture a mother with seven young ones more 
than half grown, and quite stout enough to be weaned. 
As soon as we got them home we separated them, and placed 
the mother in a box with our four little captives of the day before. 
She adopted them without hesitation, and nursed them for us till 
they were well grown and would eat nuts freely. The mother 
squirrel was one of those which fell to my lot in the division, and 
to show my sense of gratitude for her services, I took her back 
one summer afternoon, most religiously, to the tree in which I had 
found her, and restored her to the liberty of the forest. 
I have several times performed the same kind office for our gray 
or fox-squirrel, and I know of no creature which expresses in its 
gestures and manners a healthier sense of its joyous existence or 
so passionate an appreciation of liberty among the trees. 
The little ones raised in the house remained under the average 
size of the flying squirrel in our forest neighborhood. I had once 
an occasion of remarking their antipathy to the mouse ; they dart- 
