Curtis (1775) and Chappell (1775-1818) used them as an important food supplement in the late winter of 1776, catching them either by snaring or shooting, or else by purchase from other settlers. They continued to be eaten throughout the nineteenth century and were considered a delicacy by many“. Their fur however seems to have had little value”: in 1808 the price of a "rabbit skin” was only one pence”. 1“ Squirrels and chipmunks — That squirrels occur in only twelve of the seventeen lists (Table 2-1) is an indication not of their scarcity, but that, being of little value for either food or fur, they tended to be overlooked, except by those who set out to list all of the island’s mammals.“3 In the early decades of British settlement, although several recorders noted the presence of different ’kinds’ of squirrel they were not named.16 Thus it was not until 1806 when John Stewart published his book that included a chapter on the island’s fauna, that the three species of squirrel are first recorded: what he called the ”red squirrel” (i.e. Tamiasciuris hudsonicus), the ”striped squirrel" (i.e. the chipmunk, Tam/as striatus), and the ”flying squirrel” (G/aucomys sabrinus). Thereafter, all three species are listed by another five recorders, though the names given to them vary.17 The red said to have survived in part on rabbits during a winter when provisions were scarce ([Lawson] 1877-1878). 11 Stewart 1806; Anon. 1808; Anon. 1818; [Hill] 1819; MacGregor 1828; Lawson 1851; Sutherland 1861; Bain 1890. Rowan (1876) (p. 194, not extracted) considered them as good as the English rabbit, and describes methods of cooking. ‘2 Johnstone 1822; Sutherland 1861. ‘3 Anon. 1808. I note however from the island shipping records that “30 dozen loose rabbit skins" were shipped to Halifax in a vessel in 1802. The ship was the Betsy and it cleared customs on 19 June. [C.O. 231/2, R.G. 9: Collector of Customs. Shipping outwards all points (1802-1827) (1831- July 1845). Reel # 7.] ‘4 l direct readers to the article in The Island Magazine by Curley (1989) (‘The ubiquitous hare'), in which some of the historical sources for the snowshoe hare on the island are treated more expansively, ‘5 In fact during the French period the only recorder to note the presence of any of the squirrel species was La Ronde in 1721, who. ignoring the common red squirrel and chipmunk, recorded the presence of the elusive flying squirrel, presumably because of its unusual mode of movement (see Sobey 2002, p. 146). 16 Patterson (1770) simply listed ‘squirrels', while both [Cambridge] (1796) and Walsh (1803) said that “several kinds” were present. ‘7 The flying squirrel is called so by all five recorders; but the red squirrel is called the “brown squirrel“ by MacGregor (1828) and the “climbing squirrel" by Johnstone (1822), and what we now know as the chipmunk is called either the “ground squirrel" (Johnstone 1822; Sutherland 1861) or the “striped squirrel" (MacGregor squirrel and the chipmunk were considered to be very plentiful“, but due to its nocturnal and elusive habits there was some uncertainty as to the abundance of the flying squirrel: Stewart (1806) considered it not as common as the other two species, though Bain (1890) said it was ”not rare”. Stewart (1806) said that all three species, and particularly the 'striped' He. the chipmunk), increased "vastly” the year after a crop of beech mast, while Bain (1890) said that the red squirrel was "plentiful in every wood where beech nuts were found”. Sutherland (1861) also commented on the special fondness for nuts among the squirrels in general. Bain (1890) said that the chipmunk dug its burrow ”under the roots of the great trees in a spruce wood” while the flying squirrel nested in hollow trees. The ’plague vole' — In the first eighty years of British settlement the only species of mouse or vole that entered the records was the one responsible in occasional years for the destruction of the settlers’ crops. This ”plague mouse" had destroyed the crops several times during the French regime and there had been extensive comment on it by writers of that period”. During the British period there was an outbreak in 177020 and another in 1775“, and seemingly others in 1776, 1781 and 179622, and there appear to have been other outbreaks that have not entered the forest-related sources that I have collected here.23 1828; Sutherland 1861). It is Bain in 1890 who is the first to give the name chipmunk as an alternative name for the ground squirrel. ‘8 Stewart 1806; Johnstone 1822; Sutherland 1861. ‘9 See Sobey 2002, pp. 146, 154. 2° Patterson 1770. (It is probably also this outbreak that is referred to by Anon. (1773).) 2‘ Lawson (post 1777). The same outbreak is recalled by a Nova Scotia author, Patterson (1886), whose source of information seems to have been settlers who left Three Rivers on account of the ‘mouse plague‘ and settled in Nova Scotia. 22 Robinson (0. 1798). 23 MacQuarrie (1987) mentions further outbreaks in 1782 and in 1813-1815. 1815 seems to be the year of a mouse plague that afflicted Thomas Halliday at Wood Islands (Bumsted 1986) (p. 31), while Campey (2003) (p. 47) notes that 1806 had also been a “mouse year" on the island, citing a letter to Lord Selkirk from John MacDonald of Glenaladale. Then, many decades later, in response to a question about when the ‘plagues of mice' had occurred, various elderly respondents to the Questionnaire (1876) gave dates, undoubtedly rough estimates, that by my calculation range between 1791 and 1823. I note also that The Prince Edward Island Magazine in April 1899 made an appeal to its readers for information on mice ‘invasions' ofthe past, which led to an article by John Caven on the outbreaks of the French period titled ‘A Plague of Mice', which was published in the August 1899 issue. (Ref: The Prince Edward 240