squirrel, squirel, scurel, scurelle

[O. Fr. escurel; Fr. écureuil; Low Lat. sciuriolus, dim in. from Lat. sciurus, from Gr. skiouros: ski a = a shadow, and our a =a tail, hence the name the animal that shades or covers itself with its tail, from its habit of sitting with the tail curved over its back; Prov. escurol; Sp. & Port. esquilo; Ital. scojattolo.] Zool .: A popular name for any of the Sciuridae. (q.v.); widely distributed in America, Europe, the Caucasus, Southern Siberia, and probably in Persia. It is an elegant little animal with bright black eyes; from eight to ten inches in length, with a bushy tail nearly as long; color gray or reddish brown, white beneath, but the hue varies with the seasons, in Lapland and Siberia the upper surface becomes gray, and in Central Europe is sprinkled with gray, in the winter. Squirrels haunt woods and forests, nesting in trees, and displaying marvelous agility among the branches. They feed on nuts, acorns, beech-mast, which they store up, birds' eggs, and the young bark, shoots, and buds of trees, doing no small amount of damage. They pa the winter in a state of partial hibernation, waking up in fine, warm weather, when the provision laid up in the summer is made use of for food. They are mon Squirrel. ogamous, and the female produces three or four young, usually in June. In Lapland and Siberia they are killed in great numbers for the sake of their winter coat. This, though valuable, is in ferior to the fur of the North American Gray Squirrel ( S. carol in ens is ). [FLYING-SQUIRRELS.] squirrel-corn, s. "But when they have bespatter'd all they may... The statesman throws his filthy squirts away!" Young: To Mr. Pope , ep. 1. *2. A small jet. "The watring of those lumps of dung, with squirts , of an infusion of the medicine in dunged water." -Bacon : Nat. Hist., § 500. *3. Loosene of the bowels; diarrhœa. "Squyrte, a laxe; foire."-Palsgrave. 4. A foppish young fellow; a whipper-snapper. ( Collog .)