SIR SQUIRREL 



THE swinging song of the ox-eye scarcely breaks 

 the silence of the woods ; it seems merely to give 

 it a tone. The tall trees, mixed Scotch pine and 

 beech, throw an open tracery of shadow on the sun- 

 lit ground that makes it resemble the floor of a 

 church. But a most unchurchlike interruption occurs 

 when, with an angry cough, the squirrel of that par- 

 ticular glade dashes after an intruder he has espied. 

 The two animals, each half-tail, both in length and 

 apparent bulk, thread a few zigzags among the pillars 

 of the aisle, then one catches the other, and they roll 

 over scratching and biting, more like rats than the 

 dignified creatures they are generally imagined to 

 be. Then they start asunder, the intruder to go 

 back to his proper land, the defender to spring to an 

 advantageous fork whence he can survey the late field 

 of battle. 



There he sits now, just as the picture-books would 

 have him sit, his acanthine tail following the curve of 

 his back, and waving into a tip that matches the tufts 

 at his ears and make him a better-looking animal in 

 winter than in summer. Squirrel? It looks like a 

 superior portmanteau word savouring of scurry and 

 whirl a picture that the name usually calls up. Ah ! 

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