20 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 16

Corn and Squirrels A complete list of the sins or

crimes of the grey squirrel or tree rat., as some call it, would /flake a formidable index ; for this clever and adaptable creature continually' discovers new tastes. I see that it has been causing friction between landlord and tenant. Ravages among the corncrops, attri- buted to game, especially pheasants, have at last been brought home to this squirrel. This taste for corn is described as new. It is, in fact, the oldest of all the dietetic habits attributed to the grey squirrel in literature. The loom classicus is in Buffon, who was not the less serious because now and again he was too ready to accept local traditions. He wrote a very forthright warning against this squirrel (though be did not imagine that anyone would be foolish enough to naturalise it) on the ground that it was a serious enemy to Anierican corn crops. These latest accounts of its damage in English wheatfields are almost a repetition of Buffon's account of its attacks on American corn or maize. Most game preservers must by now have discovered how greedily it devours grain used for the feeding of pheasants. Even the keeper's locked but is not defence enough on one game farm with which I am familiar.