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206 the night. It was quite busy all the evening gnawing out, clinging for this purpose and gnawing at the upper edge of a sound oak barrel, and then dropping to rest from time to time. It had defaced the barrel considerably by morning, and would probably have escaped, if I had not placed a piece of iron against the gnawed part. I had left in the barrel some bread, apple, shagbarks, and cheese. It eat some of the apple and one shagbark, cutting it quite in two transversely. In the morning it was quiet, and squatted, somewhat curled up, amid the straw, with its tail passing under it and the end curved over its head, very prettily, as if to shield it from the light and keep it warm. I always found it in this position by day when I raised the lid.

March 23, 1855. Carried my flying squirrel back to the woods in my handkerchief. I placed it on the very stump I had taken it from. It immediately ran about a rod over the leaves and up a slender maple sapling about ten feet, then after a moment's pause sprang off and skimmed downward toward a large maple nine feet distant, whose trunk it struck three or four feet from the ground. This it rapidly ascended on the opposite side from me, nearly thirty feet, and then clung to the main stem with its head downward, eyeing me. After two or three minutes' pause, I saw that it was preparing