day I threw a pamphlet so as to strike 

 just above his nose while at his mis- 

 chief. It frightened him badly, and 

 he suspected that the scare had come 

 out of the wall. But he could not re- 

 sist the fascination of this sport, and it 

 was interesting to watch him approach 

 and try by all sorts of devices of his 

 tail to see if the enemy were within. 



If he were walking past or around 

 anything that he feared he kept his 

 tail stretched at full length on the side 

 of his body that was next the object- 

 sometimes he held it many inches from 

 himself. If something moved sud- 

 denly in front of him as he ran, his tail 

 shot over him away ahead of his nose, 

 as if projected there by his sudden 

 stop. But it was the natural instinct 

 of thrusting his tail at anything threat- 

 ening him too suddenly for flight. 

 Much of his play at times was a kind 

 of mock fright in which he seemed to 

 imagine himself pursued by all kinds 

 of enemies — even myself — and the 

 most familiar objects becoming ter 

 rible. Then the use he made of his 

 tail was most exaggerated, having in 

 it perhaps some of the elements of ter- 

 rifying the enemy, as seen in the 

 swelled tails of cats, the bristles of 

 hogs, dogs, etc. 



One could not resist the impression 

 that the tail was thrown out as a shield 

 or a screen, but this did not always 

 seem a satisfactory explanation, for it 

 was certainl)' a very frail thing and 

 very conspicuous. Besides, it would 

 seem to furnish the enemy a good han- 

 dle to catch hold of. 



The theory has been advanced that 

 this last is the very purpose of this use 

 of the tail; and from my study of this 

 pet I became convinced that he thrust 

 out his tail when suddenly surprised in 

 the hope that it might be taken and his 

 ho<\y left. The skin on the tail of most 

 rodents (of which the squirrel is one) 

 slips easily from the bone, and leaves, 

 to a grasping enemy, often a little 

 bunch of "hide and hair," So Bunny 

 offers this — feeling that he would 

 rather leave his tail in jeopardy and <. o 

 into life whole otherwise. The glass- 

 snake (a lizard) in its efforts to escape, 

 frequently breaks off a portion of its 

 tail, which the pursuing enemy may 



stop to capture while the body wriggles 

 into safety. 



This, likewise, is doubtless one of the 

 reasons why the squirrel insists upon 

 the tail's being always curled up over 

 his back while he is absorbed in eating. 

 It is not always merely a beautiful 

 pose. As he thus sits in the trees his 

 greatest enemies are the various large 

 birds of prey which may dart down on 

 him from above. Now, this mass of 

 tail that is above him is apt to mislead 

 the aim of the enemy, and, like the 

 pioneer's cap thrust around the tree, is 

 intended to draw the fire into a harm- 

 less medium. 



There can be no doubt that a squir- 

 rel uses his tail to steer him in a leap, 

 much as the tail steers the boy's com- 

 mon kite. Perhaps, also, it acts slightly 

 as a balance, but in this respect its 

 greatest use must lie in its "up and 

 down" rudder effect — or rather para- 

 chute-like effect — as he makes those 

 tremendous leaps from a tall treetop 

 to the earth. 



Here it comes well into play in les- 

 sening the shock of alighting, an emer- 

 gency enabling him to escape some 

 enemies — as a weasel or mink, perhaps 

 — which may chase him around in the 

 trees. 



The arrangement of the long hairs, 

 projecting out sidewise on the bone, is 

 strikingly like that of the feathers on 

 the tail of the ver}^ earliest reptile-like 

 birds which had long bony tails, used 

 doubtless as the squirel's, since they 

 were down-sailers rather than up-flut- 

 terers — if I may be allowed to so com- 

 pound my words and ideas. Some 

 other downward-leaping mammals 

 have the hairs similarly arranged. An- 

 other rodent, the anomalure, which 

 flies down, as a flying-squirrel, by thin 

 membranes, has special horny scales 

 on the under side of its tail either to 

 assist in climbing or to resist slipping 

 down when a tree trunk is grasped. 



The squirrel's tail, therefore, is a fac- 

 tor of his safety, as well as a feature of 

 his ornamentation. 



Another use which he makes of it is 

 that when he "lies down to pleasant 

 dreams" it forms "the drapery of his 

 couch" — a coverlid for his head and 

 body. 





in 



