STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
483 
SUPPLEMENT. 
fact in our Natural History which has hitherto been involved so 
deeply in doubt is hereby satisfactorily elucidated, but what are 
we then to think of the statement of Mr. Hurst, above related, 
and much other testimony of the same purport. The act which 
these persons aver that they have witnessed is so unnatural and 
so much at variance with everything which has been observed 
elsewhere in the domain of nature, that no scientific writer, that 
I am aware, has given any credit to these statements. Yet the 
testimony appears to be too explicit and positive to be wholly 
rejected. I am therefore led to believe that these animals do 
attack each other in the manner that has been stated; not, how¬ 
ever, for the purpose of emasculating their comrades, as has been 
supposed, but for the purpose of coming at and destroying these 
bot-grubs, the enemies of their race. We know the terror which 
some of these bot-flies give to the animals on which they are para¬ 
sites, and the efforts which such animals make to escape from 
them. The squirrel also is undoubtedly conscious that this insect 
is his greatest foe; he probably has sufficient intelligence to be 
aware that from the grub which is this year tormenting one of his 
unfortunate comrades, will come a descendant which next year 
may afflict him or some of his progeny in the same frightful man¬ 
ner. Hence his avidity to destroy the wretch and thus avert the 
impending calamity. Future observations must determine 
whether this conjecture is correct. We fervently hope that the 
sportsman or other person who next witnesses a squirrel over¬ 
powered by its fellows in the manner stated, will kill that 
squirrel and let the world know whether he does or does not find 
in it one of these grubs. If a grub is discovered, no doubt can 
remain as to the object of the other squirrels in making the attack 
which they do. 
Hie fact has repeatedly been noticed of the squirrels in our 
country, that they sometimes become excessively numerous 
throughout a particular district, doing much injury to the corn 
aud other crops of the farmer, both in the field and in the barn, 
and that they then suddenly disappear, so that scarcely one of these 
animals is anywhere seen. Writers on our Natural History adver¬ 
ting to this fact, say that their food becoming exhausted in the 
section of country where they are thus numerous, they migrate to 
