The Squirrel 107 



eat. It usually knows where to find this, since it is one 

 of the prudent creatures which lay up a store against 

 times of scarcity. As the nuthatch, its favourite food is 

 the hazel-nut, though it is also given to eating grain, 

 beech-mast, and a variety of other vegetable substances. 

 Unfortunately for its character of innocence, it does not 

 confine itself to these, but has been known to rob birds' 

 nests, sucking the eggs, and devouring the callow young. 

 Insect larvae of less consequence as regards the injury 

 done it also makes an occasional meal of, proving this 

 playful rodent, supposed to be so harmless, a very vora- 

 cious creature. But it does damage of a different and 

 still more serious kind this to vegetation itself. Among 

 the items of its diet are the seeds of coniferous trees, for 

 which it has a penchant almost equalling that for the 

 hazel-nuts. It skilfully extracts them, sitting upon its 

 haunches, holding the cone between its paws, and peeling 

 off the scales with its teeth. If it went no further than 

 eating the seeds, no one would object. But unfortunately 

 it does go further; and in early spring, when the fir cones 

 are all empty or rotted by winter rains, and the young 

 leaf-buds begin to show upon the trees, the Squirrel 

 makes sad havoc among these. Still another kind of 

 damage it does, hitherto unknown to me, and of which I 

 have just heard. 



One of the woodwards of the Forest of Dean informs 

 me that in the larch plantations over which he had ward- 

 ship for some years past, he had now and then noticed 

 large branches, and even tops of the trees themselves, 

 broken off by the wind. Some of them were of large 

 size, thick as a man's thigh ; and for long he could not 

 tell why Eolus was dealing such wholesale destruction, 

 for there were acres upon acres of the larch woods 



