116 BIRDS' NESTS. 



very shy when any one on foot comes near, 

 allow a cart or a man on horseback to come 

 quite close to them. I was driving in a gig 

 one day last autumn, and came so close to a 

 squirrel hunting for nuts in a hedge, that 

 I could have touched him with my whip ; but 

 had I been a gamekeeper with a gun, he would 

 have been by no means so quiet/ 5 



" Why do gamekeepers kill squirrels ? " 

 asked Henry. 



" Because they do much mischief by eating 

 the bark of larches and nibbling off the shoots 

 of spruce-firs. You may often see the ground 

 strewed with small branches which they have 

 gnawed off. They are said, too, to destroy the 

 eggs and young of pheasants. I don't know 

 whether this is a true charge, but it probably 

 is, as I believe there is no doubt that they eat 

 animal as well as vegetable substances." 



" Where do squirrels make their nests ? " 



(r ~ In high trees^ and they are so like birds' 

 nests that there is no knowing one from the 



