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few birds' eggs they eat cannot count heavily against them. 

 Weasels are not plentiful enough in the neighborhood seriously 

 to affect bird life. To what extent dogs and foxes destroy 

 the eggs and young of ground birds can only be conjectured. 

 The smaller owls and the shrikes or butcher birds kill some 

 small birds; but, as they kill mice and English sparrows, the 

 good they accomplish overbalances the harm done. 



I approach the name of the squirrel with some reluctance, 

 for squirrels are general favorites among those who appreciate 

 the beauties of nature. Their grace and beauty, their sprightly 

 and companionable ways, and their tendency to confide in us 

 when allowed to do so, have endeared them to many a lonely 

 soul. But the farmer considers all squirrels pests, and rightly 

 so. There is no animal which can do the farmer so much 

 injury in proportion to its size as the squirrel. Squirrels not 

 only carry off enormous quantities of corn, but they destroy 

 far more strawberries than birds do, and they ruin ten times as 

 many pears, peaches and grapes as they can possibly make use 

 of. The fruit is bitten, and then thrown to the ground to rot. 

 They will go over planted ground and dig up the seed of 

 squashes. They will pull or dig up the young corn about as 

 fast as a crow. They are the very incarnation of mischief. 

 The red squirrel is perhaps the more mischievous, but the gray 

 squirrel is not far behind it. It may be this spirit of mis- 

 chief that impels them to break up the nests of birds. That 

 they do this is not open to doubt. A pair of gray squirrels 

 was seen in the "robin roost" in July, 1900. They were not 

 molested, and soon became so confiding that they built a nest 

 in a dove cote in the barn the ensuing winter, incidentally driv- 

 ing out all the pigeons, who left never to return. 



Two broods of young ones were raised in the barn; then 

 nest building was begun in the pines. The squirrels increased 

 rapidly, and in 1902 six or eight pairs were breeding in the 

 vicinity. Red squirrels were also quite plentiful. The gray 

 squirrels made frequent attempts on the nests of both jays 

 and robins; but, as both birds always joined forces to repel 

 the common enemy, the squirrels were frequently driven off. 

 They were not seen to accomplish their object, but no doubt 

 they did so in some cases. The actions of the birds told that 



