THE BROWNING OF THE LEAVES 247 



plentifully seen in it, and he has driven tunnels 

 under its crust into which we see him hastily 

 withdrawing as we pass by. The amount of 

 wheat, beech nuts, haws, nuts, or other wild or 

 cultured produce that he will store away has to 

 be seen to be realized. Sometimes he annexes the 

 labour of some one else, a whole potato bury in 

 the rickyard, for example, where he makes himself 

 very much at home, retreating further and further 

 among his stores as the human proprietor comes 

 and removes those of the front row. 



That little rascal the squirrel is busy among the 

 red leaves, nibbling here, scratching there, and not 

 working so hard as is generally supposed at putting 

 up a winter store. If there are plenty of nuts, 

 however, you may find a heap of them hereafter 

 in some chest of natural wood in the hedge- 

 row. In the hollow stump of an ash we found last 

 spring nearly a peck of nuts, when the squirrel 

 had gone to his hoard and forgotten to shut the 

 door. 



We can find now or in winter the shells of nuts 

 from which the wild people have extracted the 

 kernels. The nut with a large and jagged hole 

 in it has been hammered open by the nuthatch. 

 That with a rather smaller and much neater round 

 hole in it has been opened by wood mouse or 

 dormouse. The one that has been split in halves 

 is from the squirrel's board. Put the halves 

 together, and you will find that he first scraped 

 away the angle at the forward end of the nut, 



