262 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



course, so as always to alight head upper- 

 most against the bole. 



It would be fun to see such a carnival as 

 Audubon describes, when two hundred or 

 more of the squirrels were at play in the 

 evening, near Philadelphia, running up the 

 trees and sailing away, like boys at the old 

 game of " swinging off birches." " Scores of 

 them," he says, "would leave each tree at 

 the same moment, and cross each other, glid- 

 ing like spirits through the air, seeming to 

 have no other object in view than to indulge 

 a playful propensity." 



Compared with that, mine was a small 

 show ; but it was so much better than no- 

 thing. 



Two mornings later (April 30) I was 

 walking up the mam street of our village, 

 lounging along, waiting for an electric car to 

 overtake me, when I heard loud batrachian 

 voices from a field on my left hand. " Aha ! " 

 said I, " the spade-foots are out again." It 

 had occurred to me within a day or two that 

 this should be their season, if, as is believed, 

 their appearance above ground is conditioned 

 upon an unusual rainfall. 



