SQUIRRELS 53 



a squirrel, like that of a fox, serves to keep him 

 warm, and is doubtless given to these animals 

 for that purpose as well as for adornment. Where 

 there are trees suitable for the purpose, squirrels 

 prefer to make their nests in some hollow trunk, 

 but in fir-woods they build large untidy-looking 

 nests of moss, grass, and leaves, etc. My memory 

 reverts to the days when, as a boy, I used to 

 roam through the fir- woods around E ridge Castle, 

 in Kent. There was surely never such a place 

 for all sorts of birds and animals, and it was the 

 greatest delight to me to spend a half-holiday 

 there. Game was most abundant, despite the 

 number of jays, magpies, etc., and squirrels were 

 more than plentiful. It was delightful to see 

 them bound from one tree to another, across 

 the grass rides of the woodlands, lighting on 

 the spray of a fir-tree, which, apparently all too 

 slender to bear them, swayed up and down with 

 their light weight. There is to me always some- 

 thing very comical about a squirrel, as he stops 

 to take stock of an intruder ; then, scampering 

 along a bough, stops again, with a merry twinkle 

 in his eye, as if to say, 'You can't catch me,' 

 though one longs to do so, and to play a game 

 of romps with the agile, happy little creature, 

 and to cuddle it up in one's arms, for it looks 

 so soft and warm. I should feel myself a brute 

 indeed were I capable of harming it. What 

 greater cruelty can there be than to confine 

 such a creature in a cage ? Its every look and 



