THE SQUIRREL 33 



mere supernumeraries, and in the course of ages 

 dwindle entirely away. 



Little did you guess, O squirrel, the immense 

 consequences that hung on the way in which you 

 took hold of the first tree. If you had but walked 

 along the branches holding them between hand 

 and thumb like the monkeys (and incidentally the 

 chameleon), you might have evolved into something 

 much more man-like than you are. When you 

 hold a nut you wrap the whole hand round it 

 instead of holding it with precision between finger 

 and thumb. Perhaps the size of the nut is against 

 you, perhaps the monkey developed his thumb 

 in order to catch fleas. Inconveniences and 

 calamities are the greatest blessings sometimes. 

 A more persistent enemy than the pine-marten 

 might have given our red squirrel wings or an 

 extended parachute such as some of the tribe have 

 acquired. 



If the squirrel's food were entirely fruitarian, as 

 some people imagine it is, he would fare but ill 

 during the time between the end of the winter store 

 and the ripening of next year's nuts. He must be 

 hard set in winter, to judge from the scores and 

 hundreds of fir-cones nibbled into cotton reels 

 that we find in the wood. The pine kernel is an 

 excellent food when it assumes the proportions 

 found in the stone pine a roll of fat containing 

 almost the bulk of a pea, but there is very little 

 food in the cone of the larch or the Scotch pine. 

 As soon as the trees begin to shoot, the squirrel 



