192 OTHEE ANIMALS 



NOTE. The nest was in fact a microcosm, or the drey, 

 shall we say, was a pantechnicon, and this encyclopaedic 

 squirrel may be said to have laid fragments of the entire 

 human world (not to mention the spiritual world) under 

 contribution. Not much instinct in this selection of 

 materials ! 



AND ONCE MORE SQUIRRELS 



Can you find room for one more squirrel-cat story, an 

 old story as to date, but at the same time new (in print), 

 and quite true? Twenty years ago last May, I and my 

 three schoolboys were picnicking in a glade of a fir-forest 

 above the Lac Leman. The short turf was covered with 

 a carpet of cowslips and spring gentians. The scene was 

 a paradise. "Hi! there's a magpie's nest. I'll have 

 one of the young ones." And with that my son swarmed 

 up the tall straight trunk of one of the fir trees to where 

 on the first fork rested a loose jumble of crossed sticks. 

 " It's not a magpie," he called, and we saw him carefully 

 wrapping something out of the nest in his pocket hand- 

 kerchief ; and tying it into a little bundle he swarmed 

 down again. The handkerchief contained a tiny grey 

 squirrel of the sort which one sees, mixed with the 

 English sort, hanging in Swiss markets in pitiful bunches, 

 and destined to fill pies. This one was the size of a large 

 mouse, blind, its tail bare of hair, not pretty in any wise. 

 "Oh, what a pity. We can never feed it," said I. 

 " Oh, let's try," said the boys. So we adjourned to a 

 wayside cabaret and ordered caft au lait entirely for the 

 squirrel's sake, and delightedly saw it eagerly suck down 

 drops of warm milk. But what to do with it finally? 

 I had a happy thought. We carried it up to the mansarde 

 in the high roof of our ancient pension, and laid it before 

 the cat (a very common tortoiseshell) , who was then 

 nursing a kitten of the squirrel's age. " She will kill it !" 

 cried the boys. But no ; pussy gave it one eager glance, 



