Red Squirrel 



apples to be picked and stored in hollow trees, for the red squirrel is 

 firm in exacting his tithe of the farmers and looks after the collecting 

 of it himself. In the matter of corn, however, he prefers to wait until 

 the farmer has gathered it into his bin, when the squirrel can generally 

 get it without much loss of time. 



The hemlock cones hold their seeds all winter, and there is never 

 a day of snow or winter sunshine that the red squirrel may not be 

 seen gathering them from the very tips of the swaying outer branches, 

 in company with the chattering cross-bills and pine-finches, bent on 

 the same errand themselves. 



Although with very few exceptions red squirrels refuse to 

 become tame in confinment, most of them are really fond of 

 human society, their keen intelligence enabling them very 

 quickly to decide whom they may safely trust. The lone chopper 

 frequently enjoys the company of the merry little forester who 

 greets him each morning with a volley of exclamations from the 

 top of a wood pile, and endeavours to steal his luncheon before 

 noon time, and later picks up any scattered crumbs, or runs off 

 with the tallow the chopper keeps to grease his axe helve with. 

 Red squirrels like nothing better than a chance to run a race 

 with you when you are driving. One will sit, tail in the air, on 

 the highest stone of a road-side wall, or a stake in the fence, 

 until you are just opposite, then off he goes. 



If you manage to leave him behind for a little, and then 

 slow up to see what has become of him, you will see him 

 come tearing after you at the top of his speed, and go by with 

 a flourish, at last whisking up into a tree almost out of breath, 

 where, perched on a conspicuous branch, he may watch you out 

 of sight, hurling all sorts of epithets after you. 



In the early spring red squirrels manage to keep pretty busy 

 tapping the sugar maples, climbing for the topmost buds of trees 

 as they begin to swell in the increasing sunlight, and watching 

 the movements of the newly awakened chipmunks and gray 

 squirrels, in the hope that even yet they may betray some un- 

 suspected hoarding of nuts. 



But it is no longer a matter of hoarding with red squirrels, 

 each meal as it comes is now his rule, trusting that the abund- 

 ance of summer is not far off. 



In tapping the maple they gnaw saucer-shaped cavities in 



174 



