228 BRITISH MAMMALS 



stores are put into many hiding-places, and are not confined to a 

 single hoard. But in the more southern parts of England, where 

 food is fairly abundant during the winter, or where the squirrel 

 continues to live in close proximity to towns — which proximity 

 results in various forms of food being procurable during the 

 winter — it seems to abandon this practice. So it is as regards 

 hibernation. In bleak districts, with a poor food supply during 

 the winter, the squirrel curls itself up in some sheltered hole or 

 cranny in a tree trunk and passes into a torpid condition, only 

 reviving when the sun shines brightly. During these spells of 

 warmer weather in the winter it leaves its hiding-place and 

 searches for hoarded nuts, returning to sleep again after a good 

 meal. But in such districts as Bournemouth, where there is an 

 abundant food supply all through the winter and the climate 

 is mild, squirrels are as much en evidence during the winter-time 

 as in the summer, especially if they can rely on human neighbours 

 for scraps of food. 



The squirrel can do considerable harm to plantations of young 

 trees by tearing away the bark and interfering with the flow 

 of sap, so that in this way the tops of young larches will decay 

 and fall off ; but the worst of its evil actions is almost atoned 

 for by its beauty and fascinating ways. It has all the impudence 

 and much of the intelligence of the monkey, whom it imitates 

 also in its wastefulness and its chattering cries. The squirrel's 

 voice is very varied. Sometimes it utters a series of metallic 

 clacks, then a rapid succession of spitting squeaks. It constantly 

 intimates in this manner, with a distinct tone of haughtiness, its 

 impatience and annoyance (more or less affected) at the intrusion 

 of the human visitor, whose inquiring gaze it will dodge per- 

 versely round and round the ample trunk of some tree. Yet 

 it is as inquisitive as a monkey, and is by no means anxious 

 to scamper off and avoid human society. Any one who has sat 

 long sketching in a wood where squirrels are will realise that his 

 presence affords to them a perverse attraction, due, no doubt, to 

 their inquisitiveness. They pursue one another from branch 

 to branch and from tree to tree with much swearing, as though 



