70 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



he will make his way, or try to, over wide stretches 

 of barren, unpromising country. Thus, when trees 

 are planted in a treeless district, by and by 

 squirrels make their appearance, even when their 

 nearest known haunts are many miles distant. Nor 

 is this only an occasional outbreak of a gipsy roving 

 disposition of the animal, since he too is subject 

 to migratory impulses at the same time of year 

 as the birds. In some countries large numbers of 

 squirrels are affected simultaneously in this way, 

 and have been observed migrating, many perishing 

 when attempting to cross rivers too wide or swift 

 for them. 



I also liked the story because it recalled a 

 squirrel's adventure told to me a short time before 

 by an old fisherman at Wells-next-the-Sea, in Nor- 

 folk. Wells lies at the edge of a marsh a mile and 

 a quarter back from the sea, and has a harbour, a 

 river or estuary which at full tide is deep enough 

 to enable small vessels to come up to the town. 

 Near the river's mouth there is a row of tall guiding 

 poles in the channel, and one afternoon my in- 

 formant noticed a squirrel sitting hunched up on 

 the summit of the outermost pole, about thirty 

 feet above the water. Evidently he had come 

 through the pine plantation on the sand-dunes on 

 the Holkham or north side of the river; but, 

 anxious to continue his travels southward along 

 the shore and over the vast flat saltings towards 

 Blakeney, he had cast himself into the river at low 

 tide, and finding the current too strong, had just 



