A SQUIRREL'S FERRY-BOAT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—Mr. Harvey Barton, I observe, suggests that this story of the squirrel has "filtered down from some large natural history book of the eighteenth century," and Mr. H. Lockwood quotes from Cox's "Gentleman's Recreation," published in 1677.
May I point out that there is a considerably older authority for the story ? John Swan in his "Speculum Mundi" (1st Edition, 1637), who in his turn found it in " Olaus Magnus," Lib. XVIII., tells the story in his charming and characteristic style :—
"Sciurus, the squirrell, is a quick nimble Creature, which will skip from tree to tree with great facilitie. When she is out of her nest, her tail serveth to secure her from both sunne and rain. Howbeit it is sometimes a hurt unto her: for the hairs of it be so thick that striving to swimme over a river, her tail is so laden with water that sinking she drowneth. Wherefore Nature bath taught her this prettie piece of policie; namely to get upon a little piece of wood, which swimming wafts her securely over : and wanting a sail, her bushie tail set up and spread abroad, supplies the room of that defect."
A further passage from John Swan on the same subject may perhaps be allowed. He states—quoting Topsell as his authority—that such is the "stately mind of this little beast" that when hunted she will not crawl into hedges but climb into the tops of tall trees. "From whence," says Swan, "may be gathered a perfect pattern for us, to be secured against all the wiles and hungrie chasings of the treacherous devil : namely that we keep above in the lof tic palaces of heavenly meditations; for there is small securitle in things on earth." The whole book is a mine of such anecdotes of animals of all kinds, often rising to passages of extreme beauty. It is a great pity it is so little known.—I am,
Magdalen College, Okford.
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