234 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



It has succeeded not only in living despite of man, but because of man, for 

 it rifles our grain bins and corn cribs and waxes opulent by levying tribute 

 upon our stores. 



Thoreau describes most graphically the movements of this squirrel. 

 He says: "All day long the red squirrels came and went. One would 

 approach at first warily, warily, through the shrub-oaks, running over the 

 snow crust by fits and starts and like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few 

 paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making incon- 

 ceivable haste with his "trotters," as if it were for a wager, and now as 

 many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a 

 time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a 

 gratuitous somersault, as if all the eyes of the universe were fixed on him, 

 * and then suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson he 

 would be in the top of a young pitch pine, winding up his clock, and 

 chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the 

 universe at the same time." 



It is surely one of the most comical of sights to see a squirrel stop 

 running and take observations; he lifts himself on his haunches, and with 

 body bent forward, presses his little paws against his breast as if to say, 

 "Be still, oh my beating heart!" which is all pure affectation because he 

 knows he can scurry away in perfect safety. He is likely to take refuge 

 on the far side of a tree, peeping out from this side and that, and whisking 

 back like a flash as he catches our eye; we might never know he was there 

 except as Riley puts it, "he lets his own tail tell on him." When climbing 

 up or down a tree, he goes head first and spreads his legs apart to clasp as 

 much of the trunk as possible; meanwhile his sharp little claws cling 



securely to the bark. 

 He can climb out on 

 the smallest twigs 

 quite as well, when 

 he needs to do so, in 

 passing from tree to 

 tree or when gather- 

 ing acorns. 



A squirrel always 

 establishes certain 

 roads to and from 

 h i s abiding place 

 and almost invar- 

 iably follows them. 

 Such a path may be 

 entirely in the tree- 

 tops, with airbridges 

 from a certain 

 branch of one tree 

 to a certain branch 

 of another, or it may 

 be partially on the 

 ground between 

 trees. I have made 

 notes of these paths 

 Red squirrel or Chickaree. in the vicinity of 



