Woods ide. 65 



Watch that squirrel on the oak branch as he sits on his 

 haunches with something in his two hands, at which he is 

 nibbling, and with his long, bushy tail curled well over his 

 back. During these spring and summer months the squirrel 

 is in clover. Leaf buds, bark, and fruits of various kinds 

 do not come amiss to him. In the autumn he will vary his 

 diet with hazel nuts, beechmast, and acorns, whilst he shows 

 the greatest ingenuity in getting the fruits of the pine-cones 

 from their hidden recesses. Fungi, too, sometimes form part 

 of his bill of fare, and some observers bring the charge of 

 bird-nesting against him. The eggs of pheasants, part- 

 ridges, blackbirds, thrushes, woodpigeons, rooks and many 

 other weaker birds are all laid under tribute by this 

 marauder, and birds frequently show symptoms of the very 

 greatest excitement when a squirrel suddenly appears in 

 their neighbourhood. In the autumn, however, the squirrel 

 thriftily lays up a store for the hard times coming. A hollow 

 in a tree is sometimes chosen, and into this he garners 

 acorns, chestnuts, beechmast and hazel-nuts ; but sometimes 

 he digs holes in the ground, and puts his treasures into 

 them. Many a monarch of the forest has probably thus 

 been planted by a squirrel, who had forgotten the hiding- 

 place in the winter, or had not required its contents. 



The squirrel, however, does not want much food in the 

 winter. We have heard how the Polar bear feeds in the 

 autumn until he can eat no longer and then hides in a cave 

 during the dreadful Arctic winter, slumbering soundly, never 

 waking, scarcely breathing, the vi tal functions reduced to' 

 the lowest possible ebb until the warm spring re-awakens 

 him. We know that certain butterflies and moths that 

 emerge from the chrysalis state in the autumn become 



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