"Coridon unto her brought, Or little sparrowes stolen from their nest, Or wanton squirrels in the woods farre sought."-SPEnser. 352. Why are squirrels grouped as the genus sciurus? The scientific name sciurus is derived from skia, a shade, and oura, a tail, and refers to the tail of some of the species covering the head, as with a shade. The common name squirrel is merely a corruption of sciurus. 353. Why are the hind legs of squirrels only a little shorter than the front ones? Because, although leaping animals, like the kangurpo, their style of running along the branches of trees requires that they should have nearly equal command and use of all their legs. In this may be seen the difference between them and the hares and jerboas on the one hand, and the tree apes, which have not the tails prehensile, on the other. The leaping animal has the hind legs long, and the muscular action of the body very much concentrated upon them. The climbing animal has the fore-legs long, and the concentration upon them. The squirrel holds an intermediate place; and this is the reason why we consider its motions on the ground more graceful than the leaping of the jerboa, and its motion in the tree more so than the climbing of the ape. Their motions are quite a study in animal mechanics; and, on account of the lightness, the gentleness, and the cleanliness of the animals, they are very pleasing objects. 354. Why are the eyes of squirrels very fully developed? Because they have to find their food, and also their footing-the latter very quickly-in the shade of thick leaves. 355. Why are the tails of squirrels so large and bushy? The tails of these creatures are exceedingly well adapted, and indeed necessary, to their mode of life; they serve to balance the body while springing, and, acting as a kind of parachute, prevent those jerks and falls which the animal would otherwise be likely to receive. "The morning.came when neighbour Hodge, And bore the worthless prize away."-CoOWPER. 356. Why do squirrels lay up stores of provisions? Because in the winter nuts, acorns, beech-nuts, the seeds of pines,, peas, beans, and other large seeds upon which they live, cannot be found. 357. There does not appear to be much truth in the common saying, that. squirrels are great planters of the oak, by the acorns which they bury in the ground and are afterwards unable to find out; for, when an animal has the instinct of hiding any substance as a supply of food, it has, as a matter of course, the instinct of finding it again; and that a squirrel should range the forest, burying acorn after acorn in places where they would be apt to germinate, is very incredible. The store is always placed in dry situations, where it can be preserved from growing.* It was said of old that "squirrels also foresee a tempest coming, and where the wind will blow for looke in what corner the wind is like to take a stand; on that. side they stop up the mouth of their holes, and make an overture on the other side against it."+ 358. Why are some of the members of this tribe called "flying squirrels?" Because the skin of their sides is capable of great extension, and being attached to both the anterior and posterior extremities, is capable of being spread out, and answering the purpose of a parachute. There is a bony appendage to the hind feet, which furnishes an additional support to this membrane, in the extended springs made by the animal from one tree to another. These flying: squirrels seem to differ physically in nothing from the squirrels, properly speaking, except in the flying apparatus, and the bony appendage which supports it. 359. Why has the souslik § pouches in its cheeks? Because this pretty little rodent lays up for the winter seeds, acorns, nuts, &c., which they convey to their borrows. Having no other means of transporting them, their feet being all employed in their movements, and their teeth ill-adapted to holding nuts while the body is in motion, they are provided with little pockets or pouches in their cheeks, in which they carry their winter's store to their burrows. *Partington's "Cyclopædia." + Holland: "Plinie." Cuvier's "Règne Animal." ? Spermophilus citillus. "Valour's a mouse-trap, wit a gin, Which women oft are taken in."-HUDIbras. 360. Why does the dormouse become fat during its period of hybernation, while other hybernating animals become thin? Because its hybernation is imperfect; it occasionally wakes and eats of the store of food it has previously laid up. Thus feeding, and being wholly inactive, its fat increases. But in the case of animals that hybernate perfectly, and do not eat, the fat of their bodies is consumed for the support of their organic functions. 361. Why is a small number of mice beneficial in some houses? Because they are great eaters of the beetles which infest houses during the night. 362. Why are rats beneficial in certain instances? Because they frequently make the sewers or drains their principal haunts, and by devouring putrefying substances contribute materially to cleanliness and health. 363. As matters are at present, the drainage of London stains the water of the Thames; but when we take into consideration the countless millions of brown rats which are supported in the sewers, and of which the greater part are produced, live, feed, and thrive there, without any other store for their support, we can readily understand what would be the case if it were not for them. Thus, whether these animals come under the name of rats or mice they are, under certain circumstances, highly useful, playing the part of scavengers for man in cases where he either cannot or will not play it for himself. Every animal, indeed, which follows man in all his migrations, and multiplies in proportion as his numbers multiply, is always useful to him. Most of these animals are, no doubt, annoying, and many of them are positively offensive; but, in all cases where they are so, man will find that he himself is generally to blame. They come to consume that which is at variance with health and cleanliness; and if the latter is properly attended to, there is no place for them.+ Rats are exceedingly clean animals; they invariably wash themselves all over after eating, no matter what. The operation is performed in the same manner as the cat does-by licking the paws. When a rat eats, he, by means of his sharp front teeth, gnaws away a mouthful, which he deposits in a sort of pouch formed between his grinding-teeth and his cheeks. Then he ceases gnawing, and masticates * Myoxus glis. + Partington's "Cyclopædia." "Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravine down their proper bane, A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die."-SHAKSPERE, his food, by moving his jaws incessantly and without pausing. They move ten times faster than the jaws of a rabbit. When a rat drinks, he laps up the fluid like a dog. A rat generally tastes his food with his tongue previous to eating it. When sleeping, the rat coils himself up into a ball, and places his nose down between his hind legs; his tail is curled up round the outside of the body, no part of him projecting but his two delicate ears, which are beautifully adapted for catching the least sound. 364. Why may black rats be most securely caught by means of a wire snare fixed on a beam or rafter? Because the black rat does not frequent low haunts, such as cellars, pigsties, &c. ; nor does he burrow and run into holes, but lives chiefly in the ceilings and wainscoats of houses, and under rafters and beams. The snare alluded to, therefore, favouring their peculiar habits, is better calculated to secure them than any other contrivance. 365. Why is the tail of the rat so long and perfectly formed? Because it performs an important part in the animal's progress, becoming a sort of hand by means of which he is enabled to crawl along the tops of railings and along narrow ledges of walls, balancing himself by it or entwining it round the projecting portions of the difficult passages along which his course lies. By means of it, too, he is enabled to spring up heights otherwise inaccessible, using it on these occasions as a lever, or rather a projectile spring. 366. Why does the disappearance of the black rat prove the greater solidity and cleanliness of our modern habitations? Because the black rat was never much of a city rat, nor resorted to houses built of masonry, and roofed with tiles or slates. But it frequented thatched houses with boarded or plastered walls, and became numerous in dwellings where the rooms were uncleanly. They were, in fact, the scavengers of dirty recesses and floors, just as the brown rat is of sewers; and the extermination of the black rat is due to the absence of the conditions which once fostered it - not to its having been driven away by the brown rat. "And forth he goth, no longer would he tary, Into the town unto a potecary, And praied him that he him wolde sell Some poison that he might his ratouns quell."-CHAUCER. 367. Why is it said that rats always quit a falling house? The popular saying is founded upon the very obvious fact that when houses become old and tottering, they are abandoned by human beings, and then the rats finding no longer their usual subsistence, quit the tenement also. 368. But the popular mind has thwarted this very palpable fact into a kind of superstition, believing that rats have the power of anticipating the sudden fall of a house, and quitting it some hours before. Granting that a rat were of all animals the most sensitive to coming changes, and that it felt them in the very dawn of their existence, the fall of a house does not come within the class of occurrences of which the sensibility of the animal would give it early warning.* In like manner it is said that rats leave a sinking ship; they have been seen to do so by walking along the rope which fastened the ship to the shore, but they did this only when the water had absolutely forced them from every other place. 369. Why is a person shifting from the party or from one cause to another said to be "ratting?" This saying is founded on the previous notion of rats deserting falling houses and sinking ships. It implies that as the individual can no longer suit his own purposes, he deserts his former place or cause. Tergiversation of this kind, more especially when it consists in deserting one party in its weakness, and going over to the opposite one in its strength for the sake of personal advantage, is invariably called "ratting;" and it is held, and very properly held, to be the worst species of political crime of which a public man can be guilty, and characteristic of the very meanest cast of mind, and lowest depth of political corruption.* 370. Why may we suppose that rats can communicate intelligence to each other when they find food? Because the depredations committed usually commence with one rat, which soon afterwards is joined by other companions, and in a few days large swarms frequently appear. * Partington's "Cyclopædia." |