THE fat squirrel dwells in forests, and seems to avoid the habitations of men.  The garden squirrel, on the contrary lives in gardens, and is sometimes found in our houses.  The species is likewise more numerous, and more generally diffused:  There are few gardens which are not infested with them.  They nestle in holes of the walls, run upon the trees and espaliers, single out the best fruits, and devour them when they begin to be mature.  They seem to prefer peaches, which, if we be desirous or preserving, we [332] ought to be careful to destroy the garden squirrels.  They also climb with ease pear, apricot, and plumb-trees; and, when soft fruits are not to be had, they eat almonds, filbert, nuts, and even leguminous plants.  Of these they carry off great quantities into their retreats which they dig in the earth, and particularly in well cultivated gardens; for, in old orchyards [sic] they are often found in the hollows of old trees, where they make beds of herbs, moss, and leaves.  Cold benumbs or makes them sleep, and they are revived by heat.   Eight or ten of them are frequently found in the same place, all benumbed, and rolled up, in the midst of their provision of nuts and filberts.  They copulate in spring, and bring forth in summer.  The litter consists of five or six young, who grow very quickly; but who nevertheless are not fertile till the following year.  Their flesh is not eatable, like that of the fat squirrel:  They have the same disagreeable odour with the domestic rat; but the fat squirrel has not bad smell.  They never become so fat, and want those fatty follicles with which the intestines of the former are entirely invested.  The garden squirrel is found in all the temperate climates of Europe, and even in Poland and Prussia; but he appears not to exist in Sweden and the more northerly regions.  [333]

*  The squirrel, with the eyes surrounded with a large spot of black, reaching to the base of the ears, and another behind the ears; head and whole body of a tawny colour; the throat and whole underside of the body white, tinged with yellow; the tail long; the hairs at the beginning very short, at the end bushy; length, from nose to tail, not five inches; the tail four; Pennant’s Synops. of quad. p. 291.

            In latin, Sorex; in German, Hosel muss; at Dantzick, Grauwert; in Flemish, Slaep-rate; in Polish, Myszorzechowa, Koszatka; in French, Le Lerot.

            Mus avellanarum major; Gesner. quad. p. 735.  Icon. quad. p. 115.  Ray, Synops. quad. p. 219.

            Glis supra obscure cinereus, infra ex albo cinerascens, macula ad oculos migra; Brisson, Regn. anim. p. 161.

            Mus quercinus, cauda elongate pilosa, macula nigra sub oculos; Linn. Syst. Nat [back to page 332].