CHICKAREE THE SCOLD 119 



lowed to stretch out upon the moss beneath the 

 low, wide limbs and watch him store. 



His morning task was to store about a pint of 

 catkins from this yellow birch in a secret crib 

 among the ferns of the glen. Up and down the 

 tree he would race, a round trip every three min- 

 utes, loaded with a single catkin each time down. 

 After storing about thirty he would take one to 

 a certain bottom limb, and here, close up against 

 the leaning tree trunk, safely hidden from over- 

 head enemies, he would begin breakfast, scatter- 

 ing the winged seeds down in a thin, flaky shower 

 upon me underneath as he ate the catkin. He 

 always ate squatting close upon this same limb 

 and backed hard up against the trunk. The 

 ground below was snowed under with the scales 

 which had fallen as he husked the seeds. 



The red squirrels' beds are big, bulky nests, 

 built mostly of cedar bark, stripped fine and mat- 

 ted into an irregular mass the size of a hat. The 

 doorways open from the bottoms or sides, leav- 

 ing the roofs without a crack and perfectly water- 

 proof. 



Sometimes an abandoned crow's nest is taken 

 for the foundation. In this old nest a deep, soft 

 bed of newly shredded bark is made, and a thatch 



