276 BIRDS AND MAN 



and if I could get at you I'd tear you to pieces. I 

 hate you ! " 



" Why do you hate me, squirrel ? " 



" More questions ! Because you're green and 

 yellow like the woods where I lived. There were 

 beeches and oaks. And because your head is crimson 

 red like the agarics I used to find in the woods in 

 autumn. I used to eat them for fun just because 

 they said they were poisonous and it would kill you 

 to eat them." 



" And that's what you died of ? Hullo ! Why 

 don't you answer me ? Where did you find red 

 agarics ? 



" I've told you, I've told you, I've told you, in 

 Treve woods where I lived, very far from here on the 

 other side of Lostwithiel." 



" Treve woods, between the hills away beyond 

 Lostwithiel ! Why, squirrel, that's where I lived." 



" So I've heard ; you have said it every day and 

 every night these seventeen years. I hate you." 



" Hullo ! Why do you hate me ? " 



" I always disliked woodpeckers. I remember a 

 pair that made a hole in a beech near the tree my 

 drey was in. I played those two yafflers with their 

 laugh laugh laugh some good tricks, and the best of 

 all was when their young began to come out. One 



