202
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
2. Seven counties where the invaders have a precarious-
footing, viz.:—
Hampshire. Warwickshire. Stirlingshire.
South Devon. Lancashire (South). Fifeshire.
Oxfordshire.
3. Five counties where there are only casual records, viz.:—
Essex. Berkshire. Mid Lothian.
Cambridgeshire. West Lothian.
Conclusion.
This completes my narrative, and although the census I had
amongst my objects is not complete it is clear that there must
now be many thousands of grey squirrels settled in the British
Isles, and, it may be asked, What of their future?
My conjecture is that they will maintain themselves, prob-
ably increase in numbers, and disperse in suitable areas, that
is in woodland districts. Where there are no trees there are no 
squirrels, and this condition at once debars them from large
stretches of the country. In this connection, it has to be noted
that it is open parkland with trees, not large or close woodland
areas, that seems to make the best home for the grey squirrel.
It has not established itself in any of our large forests such
as Epping, the New Forest, the Forest of Dean, the close beech-
woods of the Chilterns or Delamere Forest, and not in the afforested
parts of the Highlands. Wherever it becomes a nuisance or a
pest it can readily be reduced in numbers and kept within
bounds by shooting or trapping; to the last-named method
it seems to fall an easy victim. Complete extermination is not
likely by such methods, nor is it probably aimed at, and if
extermination comes about it will more likely be by some epi-
demic similar to what often-times afflicts our native red squirrel.
Squirrels have no powerful natural enemies in this country,
although the jay, which plunders the red squirrel's nest of its
young, would, no doubt, help itself to those of the grey squirrel
if the opportunity came to it; and dogs and perhaps cats may
take some; toll of them, not to mention human enemies. In
any case, I am of opinion that the grey squirrel can never become
wide-spread and dominant like our other introduced animals,
the rabbit and the brown rat, although some unfriendly critics
compare it with the last-named, an entirely dissimilar species