8 9 



XVI. 

 A SQUIRREL'S NEST. 



I HAD long known there must be a squirrel's nest in the 

 big tree at the corner of the avenue, for I have often re- 

 marked split shells of hazel-nuts lying about loosely at 

 its roots ; and nut-shells split in such a fashion always 

 indicate the presence of a squirrel. There are three 

 creatures in England that largely feed upon filberts the 

 squirrel, the field-mouse, and the nuthatch ; and when 

 you find an empty nut you can easily tell which of the 

 three has been at it by the way they each adopt in 

 getting out the kernel. The squirrel holds the nut 

 firmly between his fore-paws, rasps off the sharp end by 

 gnawing it across, and then splits the soft fresh shell 

 down longitudinally with his long front teeth, exactly 

 in the same way as a ploughboy splits it with a side- 

 jerk of his jack-knife. The field-mouse presses the nut 

 against the ground with his feet, and drills a very small 

 hole in it with his sharp incisors, through which, by turn- 

 ing the shell round and round in his paws, he picks out 

 the kernel piecemeal. The nuthatch, having no paws to 

 spare, fixes the filbert in the fork of a small branch or 

 the chink of a post, and pecks an irregular breach in it 

 with his hard beak ; the breach being easily distinguish- 

 able from the neat workmanlike round gimlet-hole made 



