SQUIRREL. 73 



a large collection of moss, leaves, and slender twigs, 

 which proved to be a squirrel's nest. It was about 

 the size of a man's head, or larger ; closed at top, 

 with a small aperture at the side, out of which the 

 animal sprung as we shook the tree : the nest with- 

 in was spacious and softly lined. Squirrels with us 

 are rare. 



A friend in the North sends me the following note 

 respecting squirrels. 



" Squirrels (he says) abound in the woods at Dil- 

 stone,* where they are frequently seen gamboling 

 among the branches, or coming on to the lawn before 

 the house. A pair, which frequented a tree opposite 

 the window of one of the rooms, evinced great en- 

 mity to a couple of magpies, with whom they kept 

 up a perpetual warfare, pursuing them from branch 

 to branch, and from tree to tree, with untiring agi- 

 lity. Whether this persecution arose from a natural 

 antipathy between the combatants, or from jealousy 

 of interference with their nests, is not known." 



HARVEST-MOUSE, f 



July 29, 1826. HARVEST-MICE are common in 

 Cambridgeshire, as might be expected, from its be- 

 ing so great a corn country. To-day I had brought 

 to me the nest of one of these animals containing six 

 young, about half-grown and well clothed with fur. 

 It was, as White describes his, " perfectly round, and 



* Near Hexham, in Northumberland. f M US messorius, Shaw. 



E 



