THE SQUIRREL.
The pretty little squirrel has long held a high place in the affections of pet-lovers, and there are few who have not admired the brisk lively movements, the full intelligent eye, and the soft bushy tail of this creature. To possess a tame squirrel is often a legitimate object of boy ambition, not unfrequently shared by their elders. In order to give our readers a few hints as to the procuring, management, and taming of this pretty playmate, we offer the following suggestions.
The first care of every intending possessor of a squirrel should be to prepare a comfortable home for the expected guest, so that the little creature may find its first association with captive life as agreeable as it can be made. In point of fact, the young naturalist should try to give to the squirrel’s future home the greatest possible resemblance to the native domicile.
The very best house for a squirrel is an unused room, fitted up with strong tree-branches, and furnished with a cosy little box, filled with hay and dry mosses, by way of a bedchamber. As, however, such accommodation is not readily found, we will just describe the mode of making a very strong, sightly, and cleanly cage, at a comparatively small expense, and possessing the advantage of coming to pieces when needed, and being packed flat like a portfolio for removal. It will be much cheaper than a purchased cage, quite as handsome, and more easily cleansed.
Fig. 1.
Make, or, if you are not a good workman, get a carpenter to make, a shallow wooden tray about two inches deep, lined with tin, which should be turned fairly over the edges, or sundry difficulties will appear in course of time. (See [fig. 1].) Then go to a wire-worker’s, and order him to make two frames of galvanized iron wire, like [fig. 2], and two more like [fig. 3], each being about half an inch shorter than the interior length and width of the tray, into which they are intended to fit easily. Also have another piece of similar wire made large enough to bend over the arched tops of the end-pieces, so as to make a roof like the transepts of the Crystal Palace. The edges of the side and end-pieces should be very stout, but those of the roof only moderately strong, or it will not bend easily. It will be better to have a square opening at each end, which should be closed by a door of similar materials. As this wirework will be of coarse manufacture, and have tolerably wide intervals, the cost will be very moderate.
Fig. 2.
After these frames have been procured, fit them together, and fasten them by twisting bits of wire round the edges at intervals of three inches or so. Put this frame into the tray, and the cage is complete. The staples at the ends are useful for receiving the hooked end of a slight iron rod, looped at the other end to the edging-wire, as seen in [fig. 4]. These rods act as braces to keep the whole structure firm, and also hold it down to the tray. Some suitable sticks or branches should be fastened to the wires, as the squirrel is fond of playing about on them.
This is the day-room of the squirrel, and its bedroom is merely a proper-sized box, with wire-work substituted for the wooden bottom, a hinged lid, and a hole cut in one end. This should be supported on four legs; a nail at each corner (not a brass-headed nail) will answer the purpose perfectly well. This box is simply placed in the tray at the back of the cage. If it can be managed, a duplicate tray will be exceedingly convenient, as the cage needs the extremest cleanliness, and can be simply purified by changing the tray every morning, washing very carefully the one just removed, and leaving it in the air till the next day. A duplicate sleeping-box will be equally serviceable. The box should be furnished with perfectly clean hay, mosses, lichens, &c.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
The cage should never be less than two feet long, two high, and one foot wide. All should be thus particular about the size of the cage, because we hold it to be a cruel deed to take an active little creature like the squirrel from its fields and wide woods, where it can sport at will over unlimited space, and coop it up in a close, evil-smelling, little cage, where its only exercise can be obtained by driving a wheel round, and its wonderful faculty of leaping wholly checked. How much wheel-work would the squirrel do if it had the choice of a tree or a wheel for its exercise? Even in a cage, provided it be of a proper size, the little creature would not trouble itself to get into a wheel, but prefer clambering about the wires, and jumping from one side to another, in the exuberance of its activity.
Many persons assert that the squirrel is quite fond of the wheel, and delights in driving it; but they forget that the poor little creature is driven to that as its last resource for needful exercise; and it no more delights in pulling a wire wheel than the caged lion and tiger delight in their restless pacing of their dens.
The exercise of the powers with which it is so liberally gifted is essential to the health of the squirrel, and its health must suffer if it be not permitted to leap. Look at it in a tree, and just see what astonishing jumps the pretty creature takes; how it will spring fairly from the ground to the trunk of a tree, making a jump of some six or seven feet in length and four in height; how it gallops up the perpendicular stem, with its tail laid behind it, like a fox’s brush; how it scuttles up the branches, always contriving to keep the bough between itself and the spectator; and then how, when it has arrived at the topmost branch, and considers itself safe, it sits up in its own charmingly impertinent position, spreads its tail over its head, and looks down with a calmly supercilious contempt on the clumsy two-legged animal below, who cannot run up a tree, and has no bushy tail for a parasol.
No one who has once witnessed this sight could ever be guilty of such a cruel act as penning up a squirrel in a small cage, where it has no room to perform its pretty tricks; and if the reader cannot furnish his pet with a proper house, we earnestly dissuade him from keeping a squirrel at all.
Having prepared the house, the next business is to procure the inhabitant. Be ever wary of those wandering dealers who carry a squirrel about for sale in their arms, stroke its head, and put their fingers to its mouth to show its tameness. In almost every case the man is a cheat, and in many instances a cruel one.
The apparent tameness of some of these little creatures is caused by a small dose of strychnine, which renders the animal dull and spiritless, and is generally fatal in the course of a day or two; so that the disappointed purchaser finds his pet dead and stiff at the bottom of its cage before he has possessed it for many hours. Some of these men are said to employ a preparation of opium for the same purpose.
In cases where these impostors wish to sell an old and cross-grained squirrel as a gentle, young one, they pull out its front teeth, so that the poor creature not only cannot bite, but feels such pain in its jaws that it recoils whenever the cruel owner puts his finger to its mouth as a proof of its good education and gentle disposition. As all rodent animals depend solely on their beautifully-formed and chisel-shaped fore teeth for their subsistence, the unfortunate squirrel is unable to eat, and dies miserably of hunger.
Taking warning, therefore, of these hints, let every intending purchaser of a squirrel be very wary respecting the seller, and examine the squirrel’s eye, to see if it be bright and lively, and its mouth, to see if the teeth be perfect. The age of the squirrel may also be known by its teeth: if young, they are nearly white; if old, of a deep yellow. Squirrels when taken after they have reached their full age are nearly always vicious and ill-tempered.
The best way, therefore, to obtain a good squirrel is either to order it from a respectable dealer, who will be sure to supply a young and healthy animal, or to be independent of dealers, and take the creature out of the nest.
For this purpose the young naturalist should go into the woods about the middle of summer, and look carefully among the branches for the home of the squirrel, called either a “cage” or a “drey,” according to the locality. The nest is made on the exterior of leaves and fine twigs, and lined with moss, lichens, and similar soft substances. There are two kinds of nests, one used in summer and the other in winter. The winter nest is very carefully concealed, being placed at the junction of several large branches with the trunk, so as to shield it from prying eyes below, the blasts of the keen winter wind, and to support its large dimensions.
The summer cage, on the contrary, is not so carefully concealed, but is placed upon a considerable elevation, and often upon boughs so slender that they bend in a most alarming manner beneath the weight. Still, it often happens that a nest can be reached without danger, in which may be found one or two young squirrels of just the proper age.
When captured at an early age, the squirrel often becomes extremely tame and confiding, and will play with its owner as if they had both lived in the same nest. It is a pretty sight to witness the gambols of a squirrel with its human playfellow, to see the active little animal jump on the shoulders, run all over the body, perch on the head, poke its wise little head into a pocket, and then with a quick dive of the ready paw bring out a nut, which it straightway cracks and eats as merrily as if in its native woods. Such a sight is pleasant for many reasons; not the least being that it proves the kindly disposition of the boy with whom a squirrel, though naturally timid, will thus fearlessly play, and it gives promise of more extended sympathies when he attains to riper years and more matured faculties.
The squirrel when in confinement is best fed on the substances which it eats while in the wild state, such as nuts, acorns, corn, and similar substances. It will also eat bread-and-milk, and likes to nibble a biscuit by way of a treat. As the squirrel is known to be carnivorous to a certain degree, it may be useful to give it occasionally a young bird, or a few eggs of the thrush, sparrow, or any other common bird. We cannot, however, give personal testimony to the good effect of this diet. Hard shell-fruits, such as nuts, acorns, &c., are absolutely necessary to this animal, as the structure of the teeth compels it to be continually nibbling. In all the rodent animals the front teeth are four in number, flat, slightly curved, and edged like a chisel. They play against each other in such a manner that they mutually keep each other sharp; and in order to supply the constant wearing away to which they are subject, they grow throughout the whole lifetime of the animal, being pushed forward by fresh growth at the base.
It sometimes happens that a rodent animal, such as a rat or a rabbit, loses one of its teeth, and the consequence is that the corresponding tooth in the jaw, finding nothing to check it, grows so long that it has been known to reach even the forehead, to form a complete ring, and sometimes to penetrate the other jaw. In all these cases the poor creature was miserably thin, and would probably have died from gradual starvation at no distant period.
The last-mentioned point in squirrel-keeping, though of course the most important, is the absolute necessity for the most scrupulous cleanliness. In their native state, all animals are clean to a degree that might shame many a human being, and their instinctive sanitary customs are most praiseworthy. Even the pig, for instance, so often cited as an example of filthy habits, is when wild a model of cleanliness, and when domesticated absolutely revels in a thorough scrubbing with soap and hot water. The squirrel, in like manner, though perfectly sweet and clean in a wild state, is sure to be most offensive in captivity, unless the cage be carefully purified daily.
It is for this reason that we are so particular in recommending galvanized iron for the materials of the cage, avoiding wood altogether, as an evil odour readily penetrates wood, and can never be totally expelled. The duplicate tray and sleeping-box will prove to be of the greatest service in keeping the cage clean, and will save much trouble to the proprietor and annoyance to the inhabitant.
Should the squirrel-rearer prefer to employ wood in any part of the cage, he must be sure to bind with sheet-tin every edge and angle of the woodwork, as the little creature will nibble at the exposed edges so continually with its chisels of teeth, that it will speedily render the article useless.
Before closing these remarks, let us enjoin on every intending rearer of a pet to consider well before he undertakes the sole guardianship of any creature, and to assure himself that he will perform with punctuality and completeness the many little offices required by animals when taken from their natural state of existence, debarred from the exercise of their ordinary capacities, and rendered incapable of procuring food or keeping themselves in that state of cleanliness which is the ordinary condition of creatures in a state of nature.
He must make up his mind that the task will be somewhat troublesome, and will now and then interfere with contemplated projects; but at the same time he must rigidly determine that nothing shall cause him to forget, or induce him to omit, one single duty towards the little creature under his care. It is dumb, and has no language to declare its wants or proclaim its injuries; and this very dumbness ought to incite in every right-feeling heart a strong compassion for the helpless state in which the creature is placed, an unshakeable resolution to make it as happy as it can be under the circumstances.
It is possible to elevate the character of a kindly-treated pet to such a degree, that it will voluntarily forsake the society of its own kind for that of man, and even if granted its liberty, will refuse to avail itself of the gift, and return to the protection of the sheltering hand. By humane and sympathetic treatment a pet may be made happier than in its native state, and be saved many pangs of suffering by a kindly owner. All animals when wild have to pass through a sort of schooling, and get sadly knocked about and bullied by their elders before they attain maturity and strength to become bullies in their turn; but if reared in gracious captivity, they will escape the ordeal through which they must have passed.
Lastly, let the owner remember that his little favourite is wholly dependent on him for every necessary and comfort of life, and that it will be a piece of arrant cruelty—or, at all events, of inexcusable thoughtlessness—to permit the captive to feel the pangs of hunger or thirst, or to suffer the discomfort of an unclean home.
