AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 197 



Sierra as the Douglas. Every forest, however 

 dense or open, every hilltop and canon, how- 

 ever brushy or bare, is cheered and enlivened by 

 this happy little animal. You are likely to notice 

 him first on the lower edge of the coniferous belt, 

 where the Sabine and yellow pines meet ; and 

 thence upward, go where you may, you will find 

 him every day, even in winter, unless the weather 

 is stormy. He is an exceedingly interesting 

 little fellow, full of odd, quaint ways, confiding, 

 thinking no evil ; and without being a squirrel 

 — a true shadow-tail — he lives the life of a 

 squirrel, and has almost all squirrelish accom- 

 plishments without aggressive quarrelsomeness. 

 I never weary of watching him as he frisks 

 about the bushes, gathering seeds and berries ; 

 poising on slender twigs of wild cherry, shad, 

 chinquapin, buckthorn, bramble ; skimming along 

 prostrate trunks or over the grassy, needle-strewn 

 forest floor ; darting from boulder to boulder on 

 glacial pavements and the tops of the great 

 domes. When the seeds of the conifers are ripe, 

 he climbs the trees and cuts off the cones for a 

 winter store, working diligently, though not with 

 the tremendous lightning energy of the Douglas, 

 who frequently drives him out of the best trees. 

 Then he lies hi wait, and picks up a share of the 

 burs cut off by his domineering cousin, and stores 

 them beneath logs and in hollows. Few of the 

 Sierra animals are so well liked as this little airy, 



