A HERMIT'S WILD FRIENDS 



brown study. Like a flash he came out of his 

 trance, grasped the box, and turned it com- 

 pletely over, then he began to eat, saying 

 something to me, while he jerked his tail in 

 a defiant manner. After this, whenever he 

 found seed in the box, he quickly turned them 

 out. For a week or more I allowed him to 

 have his way. I wanted my visitors to see 

 how cute the little scamp could be on a pinch. 

 Later I drove stakes across the box to hold 

 it down. I returned one day to find that 

 Tiny had managed to dig a hole beneath 

 the box, and had gnawed through the bottom. 

 I tried another scheme for the purpose of 

 testing the intelligence of the squirrel. I 

 stretched a cord between two trees, and half- 

 way suspended a box open at the top. Tiny 

 saw the birds eating from the box, and he 

 quickly understood that it was another device 

 of mine to outwit him. He ran up one of the 

 trees, and tried the limbs that hung over the 

 box. He soon found a slender limb that would 

 bend under his weight and let him into the 

 box. After he had used this highway several 

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