128 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
the snow for buried nuts, but only in three cases could we be 
sure that the quest had been successful. On a mild rainy day 
in Dec. 1906 we found where a gray squirrel had that morning dug 
twenty-seven small holes in the sand about a chestnut tree near 
Tottenville. 
On Dec. 29, 1907, we found at the base of a sweet gum many 
seed vessels of that tree that had been eaten by a gray squirrel. All 
of the sharp points had been eaten off, and the seed vessels were 
round and rather soft. It was evident that they had been brought 
to the same place not only in 1907 but also in 1906, for we found 
several that had been eaten some time before and were now 
weathered and dark colored. On Jan. 3, 1909, we found many 
sweet gum capsules collected near the base of a tree though not 
in a pile. They had been torn apart into rather large pieces and 
the seeds eaten. 
On Aug. 5, 1909, the following observations were made in 
Prospect Park, Brooklyn. At this season the squirrels are prob- 
ably not presented with as many peanuts as in winter, but they 
secure a considerable food supply from a number of trees. I 
saw one squirrel plucking the green fruit of a species of Crataegus. 
He seemed particularly fond of the seeds and would bite the fruit 
in two and extract a few seeds, permitting the remainder to fall 
to the ground, a very wasteful proceeding. The ground under the 
Crataegus was quite strewn with the fruit thus opened. I found 
the same conditions under two other thorns of different species. 
Occasionally the fruit cluster with several leaves was gnawed off 
and allowed to fall to the ground. These of course could be 
opened later, as is done with the oak apple galls and pine cones 
that are gnawed off of trees. Green hickory nuts from quite a 
number of trees, including two species, were found eaten. Usu- 
ally half of the outer husk and also about one half of the nut 
were eaten away to get at the interior, which in the case of even 
the large mocker nuts was pretty well cleaned out. They did not 
seem to be as fond of black walnuts but had gnawed a number 
from a tree and tried pretty hard to divest them of the bitter 
