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might be placed by heavy falls of snow or thick formations of 

 ice beyond the reach of the depositor, who would then be left 

 without food through the most inclement season of the year. 

 No ; by an exercise of the highest instinct, if not actual 

 reason, they are buried each by itself in every available spot in 

 the woods, whether on the hill-side, or beneath a fallen and 

 rotten trunk of a tree, or on the edge of a swamp, — anywhere, 

 that it may be found when occasion calls for it. And all know 

 how this little animal goes through the woods in the heavy 

 snow, digging down to its buried treasure with almost unerring 

 precision. We have said it is a liberal provider ; and what is 

 the proportion of the nuts it eats, of the whole number it 

 deposits ? Not one-fourth ; and as it instinctively buries only 

 those nuts that are perfectly sound, without insect stings, or 

 germs of rot, of course, all that are left buried, sprout and 

 spring from the ground,- miniatures of the parent tree. It is 

 well known that only a very small proportion of those nuts 

 that are left on the surface of the ground, exposed to the action 

 of the elements, ever mature and sprout ; they rot and shrivel, 

 or become the food and burrowing-place of noxious insects ; 

 and it can be very readily seen that it is on the labors of the 

 arboreal squirrels that an extension of the growth of our forest- 

 trees depends. It is not alone in the confines of the woods 

 that the nuts are buried ; but all along their borders, some- 

 times rods away from them, in the open fields and pastures, do 

 these active animals make their deposits ; and people who live 

 in the prairie countries, in which are belts of oaks and chest- 

 nuts, often find the young of these trees growing at a consider- 

 able distance from tlie parent grove, and attribute their pres- 

 ence to the action of high winds that had blown the nuts to 

 that distance. 



In many sections the gray squirrel is destructive in the fields 

 of Indian corn, especially when such fields are situated near its 

 haunts ; but, generally speaking, we have no hesitation in say- 

 ing that it is far more valuable on the farm, than noxious. 



The little red squirrel is another of our little quadrupeds 

 that is distributed almost entirely throughout our continent. 

 Like the gray squirrel, it makes its home in the woods, and is, 

 in some localities, very abundant. In the pine and hemlock 

 forests of the North it is, probably, the most common of all the 

 mammals, every little grove of these trees having one or more 

 families. It feeds principally on various nuts and seeds, and 

 in localities where the various pines abound, together with the 

 oaks and chestnuts ; it is especially valuable in securing a con- 

 tinuance of the latter, and even an introduction of them into 

 the forests of the pines and hemlocks. For, preferring the dark 

 shades of these evergreens for its home, it naturally eats its 

 food in them ; and all who have paid much attention to the 



