162 Tricks of Squirrels. 



erally supposed. Fir trees seem to attract them — 

 where there is a plantation of firs 3'ou may be sure 

 of finding a squirrel. 



When alarmed or chased a squirrel always ascends 

 the tree on the opposite side awa}^ from you — he will 

 not run to a solitary tree if he can possibly avoid it : 

 he hkes a group, and his trick is, the moment he 

 thinks he is out of sight among the upper branches, 

 to slip quietly from one tree to the other till, while 

 you are scanning ever}" bough, he has travelled fifty 

 yards away unnoticed. If the branches are not close 

 enough to hide him, he gets as much as possible be- 

 hind a large branch, and stretches himself along it — 

 at the same time his tail, which at other times is bushy, 

 seems to contract, so that he is less visible. He will 

 leap in his alarm to dead branches, and, though his 

 weight is trifling, occasionally they snap under the 

 sudden impact ; but that does not distress him in the 

 least, because a bough rarely breaks clean off" but 

 hangs suspended by bark or splinters, so that he can 

 scramble to the ivy that winds round the trunk. Or 

 if he is obliged to slip down, the next branch catches 

 him ; and I have never seen a squirrel actually fall, 

 though sometimes in their frightened haste they will 

 send a number of little dead twigs rustling down- 

 wards. When the tail is spread, out, so to say, its 

 texture is so fine and silky that the light seems to 

 play through it. They love this particular corner 

 because just there the hedge is composed of hazel 

 bushes, and even when the nuts are gone from the 

 branches they still find some which have dropped 

 upon the bank and are hidden in the drj^ grass and 

 brown leaves. 



