It is easily domesticated and is very amusing in its habits when suffered to go at large in a room or kept in a spacious cage, but when confined in a little box, especially in one of the cruel wheel cages, its energies and playfulness are quite lost. The ancient Greeks were fully aware of its attractive qualities, and we are indebted to them for its scientific name. That name signifies "he who is under the shadow of his tail," and everyone who knows the meaning of the Greek word _sciurus_ "must involuntarily think of the lively little creature as it sits on the loftiest branches of the trees."
The favorite haunts of the squirrel are dry, shady forests. When fruits and nuts are ripe it visits the village gardens. Where there are many pine cones it makes its permanent home, building one or more, usually in old nests of crows which it improves. If it does not intend to remain long it uses the nests of magpies, crows, or birds of prey, but the nest which it intends to serve as a permanent sleeping-place, a shelter against bad weather, or a nursery, is newly built. It is said that every squirrel has at least four nests; but nothing has been definitely proven on this score. Brehm says they also build in hollow trees; that the open-air nests usually lie in a fork close to the main trunk of the tree; the bottom is built like one of the larger bird nests while above there is a flat, conical roof after the manner of magpies' nests, close enough to be impenetrable to the rain. The main entrance is placed sideways, usually facing the east; a slightly smaller loop-hole for escape from its many enemies is found close to the trunk.
According to the season it eats fruit or seeds, buds, twigs, shells, berries, grain and mushrooms. The seeds, buds and young shoots of fir and pine trees probably form its principal food.
As soon as the animal is provided with food in abundance it lays by stores for later and less plenteous times, carrying to its storerooms nuts, grains and kernels, sometimes from a great distance. In the forests of southeastern Siberia the squirrels also store away mushrooms, and that in a very peculiar manner.
"They are so unselfish," says Radde, "that they do not think of hiding their supply of mushrooms, but pin them on the pine needles or in larch woods on the small twigs. There they leave the mushrooms to dry, and in times of scarcity of food these stores are of good service to some roaming individual of their kind."