Abstract
A NEIGHBOUR of mine, whose cottage is thickly surrounded with trees, observed a squirrel, during the severe weather of winter, occasionally stealing food from the troughs set out for the poultry. At first it caused great commotion among the birds, but latterly they were less uneasy in its presence. Taking an interest in the wild creature he began to lay out refuse food for it, including bits of ham, which it greedily appropriated. Getting more courageous, it ventured within doors. After a time it got caught in a trap set for rats underneath the bed. Being freed from its irksome position it was thought that the squirrel would venture no more within doors. Neither the incident of the trap nor confinement for some time within a cage availed to restore to it its original shyness. With the coming of summer its visits have been less regular, but occasionally it looks in still. May not a habit like this, affecting only one out of many, be looked upon as corresponding to a “sport” in the vegetable world, and shed some light on the subject of the domestication of animals? The squirrel seems to have been quite a wild one to start with, for there is no one in the district who had been in the habit of keeping one as a pet.
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SHAW, J. Singular Behaviour of a Squirrel. Nature 24, 167 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024167a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024167a0
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