Mrs Barua’s letter in The Statesman about a squirrel that
caught and ate a sparrow surprised me. The common striped squirrel, like others
of its tribe, is much more varied and cosmopolitan in its diet than is
generally supposed. I have already described its feeding habits in this column
more than once — to summarise, tree-gum, termites, insect grubs, eggs, nectar
and flowers, besides nuts, fruits, seeds and tender leaves and buds. But I have
never known a squirrel actively hunt a free-living bird.

However, an acquaintance of mine who likes cage-birds tells
me that once he found a wounded squirrel and, wishing to nurse it back to
health, put it inside the only roomy cage he had, a cage in which there were
several munias. Its injuries healed rapidly and when it was almost quite
recovered, it killed and partly ate one of the munias. The birds, in this
instance, were confined and could not escape.

Squirrels will raid nests and consume eggs, just as rats
will, and no doubt they will also take an occasional nestling, if the chance to
do so offers, but they are not regular baby-snatchers as the crows are. I have
seen a squirrel driven away from a bush by a nesting pair of sunbirds.

Many rodents do not despise flesh, and even bones when they
get the opportunity to indulge in such fare; rats will freely eat flesh and
porcupines gnaw bones with avid relish. But then it is one thing to indulge an
occasional craving for a high-protein diet, and quite another to turn predator,
as the sparrow-catching squirrel of Mrs Barua’s report did. That is the
significant thing about the report, to a naturalist.

When I was a boy, I often trapped squirrels in a rattrap by
laying a trail of wheat right into the trap and releasing the spring catch from
about 20 yards away by means of a string. Quite a number of sparrows, and even
common mynahs, used to be attracted by the scattered grain, and they were
extremely wary of the squirrels. Even crows (which attack, kill and eat baby
squirrels) treat adult squirrels with respect.

On several occasions I have seen a mother squirrel go for a
crow (and once a pair of jungle crows) which was harrying its young and,
invariably, the birds flew away. There is no doubt about the squirrel’s ability
to inflict a dangerous bite with its sharp, chisel-like incisors.

All this does not make that sparrow-catching squirrel any
the less remarkable. The report does not specify the age of the sparrow, or
even of the squirrel. A fledgling would be much less expert at fleeing from
danger than an adult bird. Even the age of the squirrel may be relevant. The
young of many vegetarian creatures are given to a non-veg diet — sparrows
provide a typical example. Seed-eaters in the main, adult sparrows sometimes
feed their nestlings on grasshoppers, mantids and similar insects, with the
hard parts carefully removed. Squirrels, of course, do no such thing; they
suckle their young: but it could be that a young squirrel is more adventurous
in seeking sustenance than one older and more set in its dominantly vegetarian
ways.

Years ago, in Karwar, I saw a giant squirrel in the treetops
with a young bird in its mouth. I could not make out the identity of the bird
as the squirrel bolted from me, leaping from bough to bough and quickly
disappearing from sight, but it was a young bird, about the size of a mynah —
whether that was a nestling, or a bird taken on a bough, I could not say.

I can answer Mrs Basrua on the main point. The common striped
squirrel, though it does go in for insects, eggs and an occasional nestling, is
vegetarian in the main. After all, many of us who call ourselves vegetarian do
take in a measure of animal food, milk, curds, butter and ghee being freely
eaten by the most orthodox. Some professed vegetarians eat fish and eggs.
Egg-eating vegetarian myself, I cannot understand the inclusion of fish in an
orthodox diet, but eggs, of course, are fully justified. Haven’t you heard of
the eggplant?

This was published on
3 november 1963 in The Sunday Statesman

By M Krishnan