The Squirrel's Thrift 



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species. One may reasonably infer the process 

 of acquirement of this instinctive habit to have 

 been something like this : Remembering that the 

 restless search for and eager utilization of food 

 constitute the foremost characteristic of these 

 little animals, we may believe that this activity 

 would be increasingly stimulated as the ripen- 

 ing season of the seeds, nuts, etc., on which they 

 depend, advanced; and the acquisitive impulse 

 urging them to incessant industry, so neces- 

 sary during the poorer parts of the year, would 

 then be over-excited and over-worked, and each 

 animal in its haste to be up and doing would 

 constantly bring to its home much more food 

 than would be daily consumed, so that a lot of 

 it would accumulate in the accustomed dining- 

 room, which, in the case of the burrowers, is 

 mostly a chamber underground, especially after 

 the weather begins to grow too inclement in the 

 autumn to make it comfortable to eat out of 

 doors. In the ensuing winter the gradual fail- 

 ure of outdoor food-resources, and the growing 

 drowsy indisposition to go abroad, which more 

 or less incapacitates most small animals at this 



