sciuricide

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1896 December 22, Edmund Monson, “The Squirrel. ”, in The Spectator, number 3,575, “Letters to the Editor” (letter from Paris), published 2 January 1897, page 17, column 1:

Sir,—My old friend Mr. [William James] Stillman’s captivating account of his experiences with squirrels published in the Spectator of December 19th, appeals strongly to my empathy. When, as a boy, I levelled my gun at every bird, great or small, that would give me a sitting shot, my bloodthirstiness revolted from the massacre of a squirrel; and only once in my very early days did I commit sciuricide, for which abominable wickedness my conscience long reproached me as keenly as if I had been guilty of an unprovoked murder. Very many years afterwards I became possessed of a beautiful specimen of the American grey squirrel, upon which I lavished all the affection which might propitiate the manes of the slaughtered innocent of my boyhood.

1897 January 5, W J Stillman, “The Squirrel. ”, in The Spectator, number 3,577, “Letters to the Editor” (letter from Rome), published 16 January 1897, page 87, column 2:

Any human being who has been so fortunate as to have enlisted the love, and awakened the intellect of these little quadrupeds, will henceforward, like Sir Edmund , regard sciuricide as only some grades lower in the scale of wickedness than homicide, but no less to be abhorred. / Your careless readers will question the soundness of my mental state when I say that I learned of my squirrels lessons of love to all living creatures, such as a varied and dramatic experience of humanity had never taught me, and which make it impossible for me even now, though I am an old man, to tell of their lovely lives with dry eyes (for they are both dead);

1973, Josef Vecera, “Law-abiding squirrels”, in The Conservationist, page 45:

Within anyone’s memory, we had but one vehicular sciuricide, a gentleman squirrel, on an errand of love. He paid for his disregard of safety rules with his life—as any jaywalker might.

1995 October 22, Arizona Daily Sun, Flagstaff, Ariz., page 4:

Humans hunt squirrels during the fall. “Sciuricide,” death by vehicles, happens as squirrels cross highways. At least one squirrel death has been reported from a porcupine quill in the chest cavity. Ouch!

2014 July 23, Jamie Allen, “Consider the Squirrel”, in Oxford American, number 85:

One winter morning a couple of years ago, biking the usual route through my neighborhood east of downtown Atlanta to my preferred coffee shop in Inman Park, I happened upon a small tragedy. There in the road, beneath the gloomy Victorian façades, bare oaks, and sagging telephone lines, two squirrels lay dead, side by side—an apparent hit and run. Double sciuricide.

• squirrelcide