INTRODUCTION 



shoot them. But as I never shoot wantonly, 

 I have often studied the habits of the beau- 

 tiful animal. There are a great many of 

 them here. They used to shoot them before 

 I came, but after I explained to Colonel 



F they were not disturbed. The food 



of the squirrel is cones or seed of mostly all 

 kinds of trees — the trees we have here — 

 spruce-pine, Scotch fir or pine, larch, oak, 

 hazel, beech, elm. I have never seen a squir- 

 rel eating or destroying the young shoots 

 of forest trees, and there are thousands of 

 young trees here, Scotch fir or pine, the 

 kind they are blamed for destroying, and I 

 am safe to say that I could not point out 

 one tree damaged by a squirrel. The squir- 

 rel also eats fungi of some sorts, particularly 

 the red kind. The only thing that vexes me 

 with him is that he will rob a nest sometimes, 

 and it is always the nest of the chaffinch. 

 Why I think it does that, is because the 

 chaffinch makes such a noise when it sees 

 it at that season. The squirrel wants to get 

 it away from the vicinity of his own nest, so 

 as not to be betrayed itself, as it is not for 



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