SQUIRREL AS A GLIDER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1923, Page 14

SQUIRREL AS A GLIDER

LESSONS IN AVIATION AT THE

A .flying squirrel from India, which has been presented to the London Zoo, is the first of its species -to be seen at the menagerie for 30 years. "Flit," as this rarity is called, is a shy little creature it present, and, being of hocturnal nabjts, he is averse to daylight demonstrations of how his kind have endeavoured to master the air. Although they began their efforts to fly early in the Tertiary era, writes "A.E.H." in the "Daily Chronicle," they have not been very successful, though it is more likely that the power to glide from tree to tree being sufficient'for their, purpose, they have had no incentive,to make further progress in aviation. They are certainly adepts at parachuting, because -of an extraordinary expansion of the skin, which, joined to the limbs, opens out when the animal leaps, and forms a cavity capable of supporting it while swooping through the air. By dint of much coaxing, Flit essayed such a glide in the confines of his cage, its objective being, apparently, the halfopen door. The keeper, however, frustrated this dodge to escape, and, picking up the nimble little animal, wrapped him round his neck, when, with his'wide folds of skin and flattened tail, Flit looked more like a far stole than a living creature.', .