44 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



leaves, amid which the animal sleeps. Three or four 

 occupy the place together. There are several side-gal- 

 leries, where the stores of wheat, buckwheat, hazel-nuts, 

 acorns, Indian corn, grass-seeds, walnuts or chestnuts, 

 according to the productions of the locality, are deposit- 

 ed. They are excedingly provident, continuing to add to 

 their supplies till forced into their houses by the in- 

 clemency of the weather. Often their stores are much 

 beyond the necessities of the winter. The squirrels 

 hibernate in their retreats and become somewhat sluggish, 

 but do not approach the unconscious torpidity of the 

 marmot. The young, four or five at a birth, are produced 

 in the spring, and beautiful little creatures they are when 

 first led forth by their mother. 



"The chipping-squirrel rarely climbs trees, unless to 

 escape pursuit, or perhaps occasionally to get at some 

 desired fruit. It has a chip, often changed into a gurg- 

 ling sound, when it escapes into a hole or conceals itself 

 amid the re- 

 cesses of a 

 stone wall 

 seeming, in 

 fact, to be a 

 sort of scof- 

 fing laugh at 

 the imperti- 

 nence of the 

 assailant. On 

 other occasions 

 its chip be- 

 comes a sort of 

 song, in which 

 several squir- 

 rels in differ- 

 ent parts of 

 the forest seem 

 to answer one 

 another, and 

 thus to fill the 

 woods with a 



kind of merry chorus. Though not familiar, and seldom 

 or never becoming reconciled to confinement, preserving 

 always a rather sullen appearance, still this little creature 

 is a general favorite. His voice is associated with the 

 woods and bright spring and autumn mornings, and es- 

 pecially with those happy days of youth, when every 

 wood-ramble was an adventure, and even a chip-squirrel 

 was game." 



In the wilder and unsettled parts of the country where 

 chipmunks abound in the forests, they have their enemies 

 by the score, and these quite apart from man ; for they 

 are constantly preyed upon by hawks, minks, weasels, 

 lynxes and wildcats, and occasionally by foxes. As to 

 weasels, they have been known to chase a chipmunk into 

 its burrow, when the latter has been made of good size, 

 capturing and killing its owner in his very bed-chamber. 



In some sections of the country our flying squirrels are 

 very abundant ; but as a rule their presence is only known 

 to those who are familiar with their habits. (Figure 10.) 

 This for the reason that they are nocturnal by habit, and 



but rarely seen during the daytime. Indeed, the sun 

 seems to affect their eyes and cause them no small amount 

 of inconvenience. They nest in the hollows of big trees, 

 where their young, from one to half a dozen, are brought 

 forth. They may be easily raised ; and, be it known, they 

 are far more agreeable pets than the chipmunks. Where 

 these animals are very numerous in the forests, the only 

 time they may be advantageously studied is some time 

 after dark, on a moonlit night. To watch them in their 

 gambols is the sight of a lifetime. One should select 

 some spot of vantage in the woods where the trees are 

 large and situated well apart, and the undergrowth prac- 

 tically absent. Watch that old male who is making his 

 way to the top of a tall tree as fast as he can go. Once 

 in the uppermost twigs, he selects a place where he can 

 quit a branch conveniently, when he spreads out his legs 

 lateralwise, which extends the skin-flaps on either side. 

 He at once launches into the air, in the direction of an- 



other tree, 

 which may be 

 at a distance of 

 fifty yards or 

 more away. 

 But our little 

 animated para- 

 chute has cal- 

 culated all this, 

 and at first he 

 scales down- 

 wards for two- 

 thirds the dis- 

 t a n c e , then 

 more rapidly 

 and abruptly 

 upwards, land- 

 ing safe and 

 flat against the 

 trunk of the 

 tree he made 

 for, and at 

 once makes for the top of it as though his life depended 

 upon his getting there. He then goes through a similar 

 performance back to the trunk of the tree from whence 

 he started. This he will do over and over again, and 

 dozens of others of his kind will be performing in a 

 similar manner in the near neighborhood. The observer 

 can easily imagine that the air is alive with small shingles, 

 sailing in curves from tree to tree, in all directions. Sure- 

 ly a very remarkable sight. 



Squirrels have more or less near kin among other 

 rodents, especially those that dig and live in burrows 

 underground. Among these last we have the so-called 

 "prairie-dogs," which are really marmots. (Figure 7.) 

 These make capital little pets, as the writer can vouch 

 for, having kept them on several occasions. The story 

 that they live in their burrows happily associated with 

 burrowing owls and rattlesnakes is a tale long ago ex- 

 ploded. These little animals are, to a very considerable 

 degree, omnivorous by habit ; for they will, when moder- 

 ately hungry, devour with apparent relish such things as 

 pie-crust, raw oysters, and fish. 



FLYING SQUIRREL 



Fig. 10. The little Flying Squirrel makes an interesting pet, although he is not very active until 

 after nightfall, or when handled by some one. 



