In the early 18th century, squirrels were popular pets in Britain and the American colonies. In fact, Benjamin Franklin once wrote a grand eulogy for a girl’s pet squirrel named “Mungo.” The adjective sciurine means “referring or pertaining to squirrels.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Sciurine”
Benjamin Franklin once wrote a eulogy for a sire rine pet.
Sire rine? How do you spell that?
That is S-C-I-U-R-I-N-E. Sire rine.
I do not know.
It’s a squirrel.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, it turns out that in the 18th and 19th centuries, squirrels were really popular as pets, and in the 1700s as well.
And in fact, Ben Franklin was living in England, and he had his wife send a pet squirrel to these little girls that lived nearby.
And this poor squirrel named Mungo died.
And so Ben Franklin wrote this whole eulogy for this squirrel.
And you want to read it?
I’ll just start.
I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate end of poor Mungo.
Few squirrels were better accomplished, for he had a good education, traveled far, and seen much of the world.
Oh.
Yeah, but sirene is a word from Latin that means squirrel-like.
That’s interesting.
