A TREE-TOP AERONAUT 169 



and curled himself up complacently to sleep 

 away the rest of the daylight. Of his com- 

 panions, two had already stealthily returned, 

 and the others crept in soon afterwards 

 quite unruffled. 



That night moon-rise came to the forest 

 close on the vanishing trail of the sunset. A 

 long white ray, flooding in through the tree- 

 tops, lit up the hole beneath the branch of 

 the blasted trunk. Without haste the flying- 

 squirrels came one after another to their 

 high doorway and launched themselves upon 

 the still air. One might have thought that 

 their first purpose would have been to forage 

 for a meal ; but, instead of that, they seemed 

 like children just let out of school, bent on 

 nothing so much as relieving their pent-up 

 spirits. Probably they were not hungry. 

 It was the season of abundance, and they 

 had, perhaps, ample store of green nuts and 

 tender young pine-cones within their hollow 

 tree. In any case, they knew the forest was 

 full of good provender for them, the forest- 

 floor covered with berries for when they should 

 choose to descend and gather them. There 

 was no hurry. It was good to amuse them- 

 selves in their high and dim-lit world. 



Their favourite game seemed to be to criss- 

 cross each other, as it were, in their long glid- 



