Strange Friendship. 283 



of wolves, foxes and badgers. When the subject has been 

 carefully investigated, the owls never appear to enter the 

 same hole or burrow with a squirrel, and a squirrel is never 

 seen to enter a burrow that was occupied by owls, however 

 strongly he may be tempted by fear to enter the first hole 

 he should come to. The spermophile never likes to enter 

 any burrow but his own, and has been known to run past 

 any number of inviting entrances in order that he may hide 

 himself in his own domicile. 



In the case of the Chickaree Squirrel and the Saw-whet 

 Owl, they occupied the same hole together in perfect har- 

 mony and mutual good-will. It was not an accidental occur- 

 rence, the Squirrel merely seeking the cavity to escape a 

 danger that impended, for the bird and the Squirrel had been 

 repeatedly observed to enter the hole together, and in the 

 most amicable manner possible, as though they had always 

 shared the apartment. Ordinarily the Chickaree is a very 

 pugnacious creature, attacking with the greatest fierceness 

 the gray and black squirrel whenever they had the temerity 

 to cross his path. He seems to be ever bent upon blood. 

 Though strictly by nature a rodent, subsisting principally 

 upon nuts and the bark of trees, which his powerful incisors 

 enable him to manipulate effectively, yet he has not always 

 remained true to his instincts, for he has been frequently 

 detected in eating the eggs of birds, and also in the seizure 

 of the feathered denizens of our lawns and woods, which he 

 will capture with all the skill of the blood-thirsty weasel. 

 His method of operation is peculiar. He will lie in wait, 

 concealed from view by the dense foliage of the trees which 

 he is wont to affect when in quest of game, and when some 

 unsuspecting bird hovers near pounces upon it with unerring 

 precision, and effecting its capture proceeds to suck, sitting 

 up in true squirrel fashion, the life-sustaining fluid through 

 a wound inflicted in the side of the neck. Having satiated 

 his thirst, which may have been the prime object of the capt- 

 ure, the dead body of the bird is dropped, and the little 



