THE WAYS OF SQUIRRELS 27 



though no doubt numbers of rats and rooks were 

 sacrificed. 



The gamekeeper whose bag of vermin in a year in- 

 cluded 140 squirrels is, we may hope, exceptional. 

 Squirrels are not always treated by keepers 



The as vermin. Now and again a squirrel has 



Ways of 



Squirrels keen P rove ^ guilty of meddling with the eggs 



and young of pheasants but so rarely that 

 even keepers speak of these misdeeds as " not worth 

 mentioning." The traditional crime of squirrels is 

 that they damage various sorts of coniferous trees by 

 nipping their shoots when young. Even if they gave 

 this work all their time and attention, their numbers 

 in the woods to-day are so small that the whole 

 damage done would not amount to a very great injury 

 to the country. 



Squirrels are the most innocent creatures in the 

 woods, so far as any harm to game preserving goes. 

 It is their misfortune that many keepers look upon 

 them as a convenient form of ferret-food. We have 

 found a freshly killed squirrel, apparently the victim 

 of a bird of prey, beneath a spruce fir, from which a 

 barn owl flew as we examined the body ; no doubt 

 owls would take a chance to attack a squirrel. As to 

 what squirrels kill there is little evidence. We have 

 known a squirrel to do away with part of a brood of 

 titsin an apple-tre3, anion3 wliich visited a pheasant's 

 nest, carrying away an egg, and once we saw a young 



