62 HARD FARE. 



meat lies. lie always gnaws through the shell so as 

 to strike the kernel broadside and thus easily extract 

 it, while to my eyes there is no external mark or in- 

 dication, in the form or appearance of the nut, as 

 there is in the hickory-nut, by which I can tell whether 

 the edge or the side of the meat is toward me. But, 

 examine any number of nuts that the squirrels have 

 rifled, and, as a rule, you will find they always drill 

 through the shell at the one spot where the meat will 

 be most exposed. It stands them in hand to know, 

 and they do know. Doubtless, if butternuts were a 

 main source of my food, and I were compelled to 

 gnaw into them, I should learn, too, on which side 

 my bread was buttered. 



A hard winter affects the chipmunks very little ; 

 they are snug and warm in their burrows in the 

 ground and under the rocks, with a bountiful store of 

 nuts or grain. I have heard of nearly a half-bushel 

 of chestnuts being taken from a single den. They 

 usually hole in November, and do not come out again 

 till March or April, unless the winter is very open and 

 mild. Gray squirrels, when they have been partly 

 domesticated in parks and groves near dwellings, are 

 said to hide their nuts here and there upon the ground, 

 and in winter to dig them up from beneath the snow, 

 always hitting the spot accurately. A pair of flying 

 squirrels which I observed one season in an unoccu- 

 pied country-house had a pile of large fine chestnuts 

 near their nest till spring, when the nuts disappeared. 

 They probably kept them till the period of greatest 



