THE BURYING HABIT.
Let that burning question—the morality of the grey or Carolina squirrel—give place for a week to observation of its normal habits. In one garden (in Wimbledon) these squirrels bury nuts industriously "all over the lawn and flower beds." As a rule these are left for four or five days and then methodically unearthed and eaten. The animals seem, in the eyes of one constant observer, to remember only the general locality and to engage in a systematic inch-by- inch search, in which the final discovery of the exact spot is reached by smell. It is unfortunate—and here we approach morality—that they also discover bulbs. That same gardener estimates the tulip bulbs devoured last spring to amount to two hundred. They had been freshly planted, and the same fate befell a quantity of grape hyacinths put in at the same time. Squirrels, both grey and brown, appear to have two distinct habits : one the burying of isolated nuts intended for consumption within the week, the other the accumulation of a great store (often in the hollow of a tree) ; and it is this reserve that so often remains a reserve, at any rate throughout an open winter when so omnivorous an animal can find plenty of current food. The store is neglected and
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