298 SQUIKKEL to six, born in May or June. They are easily domesticated and gentle in confinement, and are often kept as pets in wheel cages ; they do not lay up any great amount of winter stores, being partially torpid at this season and re- quiring but little food ; they are very fond of nuts, and of green corn and young wheat, on which last account wars of extermination are often waged against them, whole villages turn- ing out to hunt them. At irregular periods they sometimes collect in large troops in the northwest, migrating eastward, crossing rivers and mountains, and committing great destruc- tion in the fields in their course. Many of this species have been domesticated in the public parks of northern cities, where they drive Common Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis). away the birds by destroying their eggs and young. The California gray squirrel (S. fossor, Peale) is as large as the fox squirrel, but more slender; it is grizzled bluish gray and black above and white below; tail black, white on the exterior, and finely grizzled below; back of ears chestnut. It represents on the west coast the gray squirrel of the east. It runs very swiftly on the ground, not readily taking to trees when pursued ; like the other squir- rels, it has a kind of bark; the food consists principally of nuts, which it sticks in holes of pine trees bored by woodpeckers, resembling pegs placed in the wood. The red or Hudson bay squirrel (8. llwkonim, Pall.) has been de- scribed under CHICKAREE. The common Eu- ropean squirrel (S. tulgari*, Linn.) is about 14 in. long, of which the tail is about one half ; the color is reddish, chestnut brown on the back, white below, becoming gray in winter in the north, and yielding then the much prized fur called minever; the ears are tufted, and the hair on the tail is directed to the two sides. It is found throughout Europe and KT. Asia; it feeds in summer on buds and shoots, espe- cially the young cones of the pine, and in win- ter on a supply of nuts which it gathers in autumn and hides in some hollow tree. It is STADE an excellent climber, and makes a nest of moss, leaves, and fibres very neatly interwoven, in a hole or fork of a tree, and well concealed ; a European Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris). pair live together, frequenting the same tree for many years ; the young are born in June, and remain with their parents till the follow- ing spring ; they are torpid in the very coldest days. The largest of the squirrels is the Mala- bar squirrel (8. maximus, Schreb.), 33 in. long, as large as a cat ; it is black above, the sides and top of head chestnut, and lower parts pale yellow ; it lives in palm trees, feeding on the cocoanut. The ground squirrels (tamias, Illig.) have been described under CHIPMUNK. SQUIRREL, Flying. See FLYING SQUIRREL. SQUIRREL CORN. See DICENTRA. ST1AL, Marguerite Jeanne Cordier de Lannay de, baroness, a French writer, born in Paris about 1690, died at Gennevilliers, near Paris, June 16, 1750. She was a daughter of a poor painter named Cordier, was educated in an abbey at fivreux till 1710, was afterward an inmate of the priory of St. Louis at Rouen, and finally became a maid to the duchess du Maine. With her she was implicated in the conspiracy of Prince Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, against the duke of Or- leans, and for giving the regency to the king of Spain. After being confined in the Bastile from December, 1718, to 1720, she resumed her former post in the duchess's petty court at Sceaux, and retained it even after her mar- riage in 1735 with the aged baron de Staal. Her memoirs (3 vols., 1755) passed through many editions, and with her correspondence are included in her complete works (2 vols., 1821). An extract from the memoirs, enti- tled Deux annees d la Bastile, appeared in 1853. See Sainte-Beuve's Derniers portraits litteraire* (1852). STADE, a town of Prussia, capital of a district in the province of Hanover, on the Schwinge, 4 m. above its confluence with the Elbe, and
