Squirrels on the Ground. 229 



eye ; it is a reddish bush}* tail, apparently without a 

 body, yejheld nearly upright, and moving hither and 

 thither in a quick, nervous way. Suddenly down it 

 goes, and the squirrel raises himself on his haunches 

 to listen to some suspicious sound, holding his fore 

 feet something like a kangaroo. Then he recom- 

 mences searching and the tail rises, alone visible 

 above the tall grass. Now he bounds, and as his 

 body passes through the air the tail extends behind 

 and droops so that he seems to form an arch. After 

 working along ten or fifteen yards in one direction, 

 he stops, turns sharp round, and comes all the way 

 back again. Some distance farther, under the trees, 

 two more are frisking about, and a rabbit has come 

 to nibble the grass in the open. 



Looking across to the other side, where the fern 

 recommences, surely there was a movement as if a 

 branch was shaken ; and a branch that, on second 

 thought, is in such a position that it cannot be con- 

 nected with any tree. Again, and then the head 

 and neck of a stag are lifted above the fern. He is 

 attacking a tree rubbing his antlers against a low 

 branch, much as if he were fighting it. He is not a 

 hundred yards off; it would be easy to get nearer, 

 surely, by stalking him carefully, gliding from tree 

 trunk to tree trunk under the beeches. 



At the first step the squirrel darts to the nearest 

 beech ; and although it seems to have no boughs or 

 projections low down, he is up it in a moment, going 

 round the trunk in a spiral. A startling clatter re- 

 sounds overhead : it is a wood-pigeon that had come 

 quietly and settled on a tree close b}', without being 

 noticed, and now rises in great alarm. But it is a 



