SQUIRRELS AND SQUIRREL HUNTING. 217 



I do not know to what extent squirrels are in- 

 sectivorous, and yet I have seen the old ones clamber 

 slowly along on the dead top branches of a tree and 

 gnaw frequently at the bark. I know that they eat the 

 bark of live maples in the spring, but why should they 

 nibble at this dead wood? Could they be sharpening 

 or cleaning their teeth? It was on a maple that I saw 

 them in this instance, however, early in spring, before 

 breeding time, and it may be that they had just come 

 from tasting the fresh sap of the lower limbs and were 

 now, simply from curiosity, testing the leafless upper 

 ones. However, it is well known that they eat many 

 birds' eggs and the suspended chrysalids of certain 

 butterflies. 



It is not so often that squirrels have been written 

 of at length in literature or with any great appreci- 

 ation, nor so frequently as one would think, notwith- 

 standing the great mass of natural history books upon 

 them. I have often wondered that Thoreau was n't 

 fascinated by squirrels more than he seems to have 

 been. He liked them, and they frisked about the 

 ridgepole of his house, and I have just spoken of the 

 flying squirrel that he captured. But scarcely any one 

 that I have read seems to do full justice to the beau- 

 tiful, graceful, wild gray squirrel of our hardwood 

 forests. Mr. Burroughs has written pleasantly about 

 them, and in one of his papers he quotes from a West- 

 ern correspondent who was quite enthusiastic over them. 

 Wilson Flagg certainly appreciated them, and I have 

 already made mention of Stillman's sensitive and ten- 

 der tribute. Mr. Charles D. Lanier has also written 



