THE RED SQUIRREL KLUGH 501 



These were narrow enough quarters for such an active animal as a squirrel, 

 but a system of exercise he invented kept him in good condition during what 

 was probably a long life for a squirrel. A " daily dozen " was not nearly enough 

 for him ; he took a daily thousand. Dashing across the floor of his cage, he 

 flew up the wire netting front, and flung himself, back downward, across the 

 ceiling, and then down the back of the cage and across the floor and up the 

 netting again, going round and round so rapidly that he appeared not more 

 than a streak. He would keep this up for 5 or 10 minutes at frequent intervals 

 all day, and his steady thump, thump, thump, became a familiar sound around 

 our house. He had a habit of bringing out a large mass ©f the cotton-waste 

 of his bed and carrying it in his mouth while he was going through these 

 gyrations. 



He seemed to know me better than anyone else, and I grew very fond of him. 

 One day, coming home at dark from an outing, I was told the sad news tliat he 

 was missing. Somehow he had scratched open the back door of his box, and 

 he had last been seen dashing through the raspberry bushes in the garden, with 

 our big tom cat close behind him. 



I w^ent to bed with a heavy heart and got up before sunrise to look for his 

 remains. It did not seem possible that he could have escaped, and I did not 

 expect to find more than his tail. The dew on the shrubs in the garden soaked 

 me, but I found no trace of the squirrel. I wandered disconsolately out of the 

 garden and across the yard, and was standing aimlessly in an open shed when 

 I heard a slight noise overhead. There was my squirrel on a beam above me, 

 and when I held up my hand to him, he came down a post with the usual 

 red squirrel hesitations, and leaped onto my arm. The call of the wild was not 

 for him. He preferred his safe comfortable cage where there were plenty of 

 Grenoble walnuts and no fierce cats. 



One winter all the hair came off his back from neck to tail, exposing his 

 livid blue skin. I rubbed a little vaseline on him, but hesitated to apply any 

 remedy, as like all animals, and some primitive peoples, his sole idea of thera- 

 peutics was to lick the place, and I was afraid of poisoning him. But after 

 some months the hair grew in again as thick and healthy as ever. His usually 

 excellent coat was a little darker than that of the average wild squirrel. He 

 was fed principally on filberts, almonds and walnuts, and his pampered appe- 

 tite showed little interest in the local hickory and beech nuts or acorns. Tlie 

 only wild food he really seemed to like was pine cones. He got quite excited 

 when he caught sight of them and seemed greatly to enjoy tearing them to 

 pieces. 



The ancestral habit of his race to lay in a stock of food for the winter was very 

 strong in him. Although he was never hungry for five minutes in his life, he 

 acted as if a dire famine was threatening. The nuts given him every day 

 were always rather more than he needed, and he carefully stored the surplus 

 in his sleeping compartment, gradually accumulating such a hoard that there 

 was scarcely room enough loft for him to get in himself, and he had to sleep with 

 liis tail hanging out. I used then to shut him out of the compartment and 

 remove the nuts by a back door. This always caused a great fuss. He was 

 being robbed of his hard-won store, and he would surely starve to death next 

 winter! He chattered and scolded, and scratched frantically at the slide that 

 shut him out of his bedroom, and dashed around the cage in great excitement. 

 He did not quiet down until he was let into the compartment again and given 

 a few nuts to start a new hoard. 



He never made any determined attempt to gnaw his way out of the cage — 

 which was made of half inch ash, and would not have been hard to eat 



24034—29 33 



