SIR SQUIRREL 31 



The first time our squirrel grasped a bough, he 

 made a little mistake that placed him inevitably in 

 the second class among tree animals. Instead of 

 putting his thumb upon one side of the object and 

 the fingers on the other, he wrapped the whole hand 

 round one way. That is the right way to hold the 

 horizontal bar, but if one uses it on all occasions, the 

 thumb is found to be of no use. So the squirrel's 

 thumb is to-day a tiny member in process of dis- 

 appearance. His paw is not the thoroughly clever 

 instrument that the monkey's hand is. He holds his 

 food with his two hands when he eats, but so do the 

 mice, the rats, and the voles. None of them the 

 squirrel included uses the hand to reach food, or 

 even to an appreciable extent to manipulate material 

 when building a nest or covering up a horde. Offer 

 a monkey, or even a lemur, a nut, and he takes it 

 politely with his hand. The squirrel takes it with his 

 mouth if he can ; he cannot, to save his life, put his 

 hand through the bars of his cage and take it in. At 

 least one naturalist describes the squirrel's thumb 

 as " almost opposable." Let us hope that the little 

 animal has at length discovered his mistake, and is 

 calling back the almost vanished limb to a career of 

 human usefulness. A being of our shadow-tail's 

 vivacity and human curiosity and vanity cannot be 

 on the down grade. So we take a solemn farewell 

 of our little brother, which he resents by barking at 

 us like a very prairie dog. 



