Natural History: Mammalia/Sciuridæ
Family I. Sciuridæ.
(Squirrels.)
The most elegant and sprightly of all the Rodentia are the numerous and widely-scattered species of the present group. They are known by having simple molar teeth with tuberculous crowns; the lower incisors much compressed. Their number and arrangement are as follows:— Inc. 22; can. 00; mol. 5—54—4;=22. The toes are long, with sharp and hooked claws, four on each fore-foot, and five on the hind: there is, however, the rudiment of a thumb on the fore paw. The presence of well-developed collar-bones (clavicles), gives much power and versatility in the use of these paws as hands. In feeding, the Squirrels usually sit upon the haunches, and holding the food between the rudimentary thumbs of both paws, nibble at it till it is consumed. The ears are often tipped with a pencil of hairs, but not invariably. The tail is long, as are also the hairs with which it is clothed; and these are more or less arranged so as to diverge on each side, somewhat like the beards of a feather. In two genera, —the Flying-Squirrels of India, and the adjacent islands (Pteromys), and those of North America and Siberia (Sciuropterus),—the skin of the sides is expanded between the fore and hind limbs, so as to confer the power of performing protracted leaps. Most of the species are arboreal in their habits, but one genus, the pretty Ground Squirrels (Tamias), burrow in the ground. The Sciuridæ are spread over the whole world, with the exception of Australia.
Genus Scrveus. (Linn.)
In the typical Squirrels the limbs are free, that is, not connected by an expansion of the skin; the molar teeth are tuberculous, the first one in the upper jaw very small; the upper incisors are chisel-shaped, the lower ones pointed and laterally compressed; and the tail is long and bushy, with the feathered arrangement very apparent.
Few persons are unacquainted with our common Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris, Linn.), either in its wild state, or in captivity. There are, perhaps, none of our native quadrupeds that can compete with it in grace, sprightliness, and agility, in the beauty of its form and hue, or the arch and yet gentle expression of its countenance. The astonishing freedom and rapidity of its motions; the elegant curves into which it throws its long dilated tail, frequently setting it up as a protection over its body;[1] the ease with which it is tamed, and the elegant playfulness of its manners, have rendered it a favourite pet. It inhabits our forests
SQUIRREL.
and plantations, feeding upon acorns, nuts, beech-mast, the buds of pine-trees, and green bark. Large quantities of food are stored up by it in the hollows of trees for its winter supply, collected by its diligence during the autumn. Hence the Squirrel, like the Ant, is a fit emblem of industry and economy.
The little Squirrel hath no other food
Than that which Nature’s thrifty hand provides;
And in purveying up and down the wood,
She many cold wet storms for that abides.
She lies not heartless in her mossy dray,—
Nor feareth to adventure through the rain;
But skippeth out, and bears it as she may,
Until the season waxeth calm again.”
Wither’s Emblems.
The Squirrel’s nest, or drey, is not made in the same situation as its hoard, but among the branches. Mr. Jesse, in his charming ‘ Gleanings,” says that it appears to give the preference to the fir. ‘‘In forming the nest they begin by gathering mouthfuls of dry benty grass, in the way we see rabbits do, and of this grass they make a considerable deposit. ‘The outside is afterwards protected with a quantity of sticks, giving the nest the appearance of a bird’s-nest."
The readiness with which the Squirrel extracts the kernel from a nut is well known, and Mr. Bell has recorded the interesting circumstance that it carefully removes every particle of the brown skin before it begins to eat the kernel. That accurate observer, White of Selbourne, notices the various modes which different animals employ to effect the same object, and adduces this as an instance. ‘ The Squirrel, the Field-mouse, and the bird called a Nut-hatch, live much on nuts, which they open each in a very different manner. The first splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife; the second drills a small round regular hole in the side of the nut; while the last picks an irregular hole with its bill."
The fur of the Squirrel, which is red in summer, becomes in cold countries grey in winter, and even in England this change takes place, though in a slight degree. The long pencilled hairs with a which the ears are furnished are lost during summer.
- ↑ The name Squirrel is derived from this habit; it signifies "shadow-tail;" from σχια, a shadow, and ονρα, a tail.