354 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



nothing came ont of the hole in the hickory. I thonght 

 the Miller's boy had mistaken the tree, when all of a 

 sudden he gave me a pinch. I looked over, and there 

 were the things coming out of the hole and running 

 and scrambling up the tree like Mice. I knew as soon 

 as I saw them they were some kind of Squirrels, but I 

 didn't know they could fly, until one got to the top of 

 the tree and put right off into the air to another tree 

 twenty feet awa}^ all the others after him as if they 

 were playing, for there were a cou^ile more holes fur- 

 ther up in the tree that we didn't see at first. 



" We couldn't make out about the way the}^ flew that 

 night, so we kept going there all summer and up to 

 snow time we found out a good many things. The 

 Squirrels didn't mind us a bit after they saw we 

 wouldn't touch them. They had sort of playhouse 

 nests made of leaves and stuff up in the tree branches 

 that they used in summer, l)ut in spring when the little 

 ones are born, and when it grows cold in the fall, they 

 stay in the holes." 



" Do they hi-her-nate ? " asked Dodo, who was taking 

 great pains to learn the word. 



'' I don't know whether they sleep all the time in 

 winter like Woodchucks, but they pack away food, 

 because we saw them, and they stay in their lioles any- 

 way. There's another real cute thing they do, — the 

 mothers take their little ones and fly away with them 

 if they are frightened. 



"Last June one of the oldest Squirrel trees was 

 partly blown over against another, and though it was 

 day time, a Squirrel ran out of her home with a good- 

 sized 3^oung one sort of tucked up between her arms 



