WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



with success, can pursue the squirrels to the top- 

 most tree-boughs, though he dare not follow them 

 in lofty jumping, and can chase into their utmost 

 burrows those creatures that seek safety in holes 

 or by digging. Of mice he kills hundreds in the 

 course of a year, no doubt, and thus repays the 

 husbandman for the chickens and ducks he steals, 

 and he will clear a barn of rats in a short time. 

 It is believed that the household mouser of the 

 Greeks in early classic days was a kind of weasel 

 and not at all a cat. The chipmunk is a tidbit he 

 is extremely fond of, and probably more of these 

 pretty ground-squirrels fall beneath his teeth, es- 

 pecially in winter, when snoozing in their under- 

 ground chambers, than lose their lives in any other 

 single way. 



Of what, indeed, is this bold little carnivore 

 afraid? for fear may honorably quicken the 

 beating of a heart where cowardice finds no resi- 

 dence. 



In the New England or Middle States almost 

 nothing exists to alarm him, except man and his 

 guns, dogs, and traps. Where wild-cats range 

 the woods, he no doubt falls into their grasp now 

 and then, and then sells his life as dearly as pos- 

 sible; and that he would "die game" even within 



29 



