46-i THE ST11[PP:D SaUIRREL. 



much art ; being worked into long galleries, with 

 branches on each side, and each terminating in 

 an enlarged apartment in which they hoard 

 their stock, of winter provision. Their acorns are 

 lodged in one ; in a second the maize ; in a third 

 the hickery-nuts ; and in the fourth, perhaps 

 their most favourite food, the chesnut. Nature has 

 given them a fine convenience for collecting their 

 provisions, in their cheek pouches ; which they fill 

 with diiierent articles of their food, that are to be 

 conveyed to iheir magazines. In Siberia they hoard 

 up the kernels of the stone-pine in such quantities, 

 that ten or fifteen pounds weight of them have been 

 taken out of a single magazine *. 



As a Swede was some time ago making a mill- 

 dike, pretty late in autumn, he took for that pur- 

 pose the soil of a neighbouring hill, and met by 

 chance with a subterraneous walk belonging to these 

 Squirrels. By tracing it to some distance, he dis- 

 covered a gallery on one side, like a branch parting 

 from tlie main stem. It was nearly two feet long ; 

 and at its extremity was a quantitv of remarkably 

 plump acorns of the white oak, v/hich the careful 

 little animal had stored up against the winter. He 

 soon afterwards found another gallery, on one side, 

 like the former, but containing a store of maize; 

 a third had hickery-nuts; and the last and most se- 

 cret one contained as many excellent chesnuts as 

 would have filled two hats'l^. 



In winter, these Squirrels are seldom seen ; as 



* Peaii, Aict. ZiKtL i. 127- t Kaliii, i. '■i-23. 



