WAYS OF NATURE 



Yesterday in my walk I saw where a red squirrel 

 had stripped the soft outer bark off a group of red 

 cedars to build its winter s nest with. This also 

 seemed fit, fit that such a creature of the trees 

 should not go to the ground for its nest-material, and 

 should choose something soft and pliable. Among 

 the birches, it probably gathers the fine curling 

 shreds of the birch bark. 



Beside my path in the woods a downy woodpecker, 

 late one fall, drilled a hole in the top of a small dead 

 black birch for his winter quarters. My attention 

 was first called to his doings by the white chips upon 

 the ground. Every day as I passed I would rap upon 

 his tree, and if he was in he would appear at his door 

 and ask plainly enough what I wanted now. One 

 day when I rapped, something else appeared at the 

 door I could not make out what. I continued my 

 rapping, when out came two flying-squirrels. On the 

 tree being given a vigorous shake, it broke off at the 

 hole, and the squirrels went sliding down the air to 

 the foot of a hemlock, up which they disappeared. 

 They had dispossessed Downy of his house, had car 

 ried in some grass and leaves for a nest, and were as 

 snug as a bug in a rug. Downy drilled another cell 

 in a dead oak farther up the hill, and, I hope, passed 

 the winter there unmolested. Such incidents, comic 

 or tragic, as they chance to strike us, are happening 

 all about us, if we have eyes to see them. 



The next season, near sundown of a late Novem- 

 20 



