54 Winter Birds' Nests [THIRD WEEK 



hollows are not available, these hardy squirrels prepare 

 their winter home in another way. Before the leaves 

 have begun to loosen on their stalks, the little creatures 

 set to work. The crows have long since deserted their 

 rough nest of sticks in the top of some tall tree, and 

 now the squirrels come, investigate, and adopt the for- 

 saken bird's-nest as the foundation of their home. The 

 sticks are pressed more tightly together, all interstices 

 filled up, and then a superstructure of leafy twigs is 

 woven overhead and all around. The leaves on these 

 twigs, killed before their time, do not fall; and when the 

 branches of the tree become bare, there remains in one 

 of the uppermost crotches a big ball of leaves, rain 

 and snow proof, with a tiny entrance at one side. 



On a stormy mid-winter afternoon we stand beneath 

 the tree and, through the snowflakes driven past by the 

 howling gale, we catch glimpses of the nest swaying high 

 in air. Far over it leans, as the branches are whipped 

 and bent by the wind, and yet so cunningly is it wrought 

 that never a twig or leaf loosens. We can imagine the 

 pair of little shadow-tails within, sleeping fearlessly through- 

 out all the coming night. 



But the sleep of the gray squirrel is a healthy and a 

 natural one, not the half -dead trance of hibernation; and 

 early next morning their sharp eyes appear at the entrance 

 of their home and they are out and off through the tree-top 

 path which only their feet can traverse. Down the snowy 

 trunks they come with a rush, and with strong, clean 

 bounds they head unerringly for their little caches of nuts. 

 Their provender is hidden away among the dried leaves, 



