MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



general intelligence and sense of humour he 

 hardly at all falls short of his southern com- 

 petitor. The woods are everywhere great 

 developers of intelligence : all the cleverest 

 beasts and birds, including parrots and 

 toucans, are almost without exception con- 

 firmed tree-dwellers. 



I notice, too, that the squirrels are just 

 now doubly preparing for winter; not only 

 are they prudently stocking their larders, 

 but they are also putting on their light 

 suits for the season. For squirrels, even in 

 England, still retain to some extent the 

 ancestral habit, acquired, no doubt, during 

 the great Ice Age, of changing their coats 

 for a lighter one during the snowy months. 

 In Lapland and Siberia, indeed, the local 

 squirrels imitate the ptarmigan and the 

 ermine by turning grey in winter ; in Britain, 

 they have lost that habit as a regular climatic 

 change, but the fur, nevertheless, gets in- 

 terspersed in places with a number of whitish 

 hairs as the cold season approaches. It is 

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