SQUIRRELS PREYING ON BIRDS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.".] Sin,—Is it not an unusual thing for squirrels to kill birds ? A few weeks ago, I was watching a squirrel playing about in a Worcestershire garden; he jumped a high fence covered with creepers and disappeared from sight, and I heard loud dis- tressed cries from a young bird. I had to go some yards round and through a gate to reach the squirrel, and by the time I came up to him he had nearly killed a fully fledged young thrush. The animal allowed me to come within a few yards of him, and to watch him eating every scrap of the bird. And be got very angry if I moved a little nearer, and so obliged him to run up a tree. I do not know whether stress of hunger forces squirrels to eat unnatural food, but the day before I found one of about the same age, not fully grown, in a dying condition and apparently starved—I am,
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