276 THE SQUIRREL. 



His winter sleep ? It is to be feared he does 

 not take it very seriously ! Even in midwinter, 

 should the morning bring bright sunshine, he is 

 pursuing his way in his oddly jerky manner, look- 

 ing very drowsy when first he emerges, but soon 

 wakening up to take a proper interest in things. It 

 is now that, to save depleting his larder, the con- 

 tents of which he may need when keener weather 

 prevents his travelling far, he turns his attention 

 to the nuts buried in the leafy banks, dodging 

 hither and thither between the patches of pale 

 winter sunshine in search of his hidden treasures. 

 Snow falls during the night, and when to-morrow 

 brings a biting wind, he is not to be seen. Winter 

 and hunger settle upon the land, but the squirrel 

 sees nothing of these things. He is a creature 

 of the sunshine, and Nature in her harsher moods 

 knows him not. One day an old lank fox puts his 

 nose into a chink at the root of the hollow tree 

 and smells squirrel. He sniffs and blows loudly, 

 thinking of the feast so near at hand, and trying, 

 by sheer wind-pressure, it would seem, to blow the 

 squirrel out of the hole in the trunk high above ; 

 but Reynard knows he will have to content him- 

 self with the smell. Perhaps the squirrel pops his 

 nose from the nook above, lets fly a volley of 

 scornful abuse, and retires to his nest within, 

 leaving the world without to the twittering of the 

 blue-tits and the restless wanderings of Reynard. 



In the south of England squirrels do not hiber- 

 nate unless the winter be of exceptional severity, 

 and it is only in Scotland and the northern 

 counties of England that storage is carried out in 

 the systematic manner described. The hibernating 

 abode is usually a hollow tree, though in Scotland 

 I have known squirrels to den up among rocks 



