23 OCTOBER 1909, Page 14

[To THE Enrroa or THE " SPECTLTOR.1 SIR, — Pouchet in "The

Universe" quotes Regnard ("Voyage en Lapponie," Paris, 1820, p. 202), who says :— "When it is necessary to pass some lake or river as happens at every step in Lapland, these little ardmfol.s [squirrels] take the bark of a pine or birch tree which they drag to the brink of the water ; they then set themselves upon it and abandon themselves to the mercy of the wind, erecting their tails like sails."

If I remember rightly, Captain Mayne Reid, the novelist, describes a similar incident in "The Desert Home," the scene of which is laid in North America..—I am, Sir, &c.,