210 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the nut was safely buried. Many persons must 

 have observed a habit of the Uttle chipmunk 

 squirrels, often kept tame in America. This 

 squirrel when cleaning itself, after the manner of 

 a cat — as squirrels of aU kinds do, with charming 

 and taking movements — ^is given to sneezing into 

 its paws as if to damp them for application to its 

 fur. It has become a moot question with observers 

 as to how far this action is the result of inteUigence 

 or merely reflex. There can be no doubt, however, 

 of the high level of intelligence amongst squirrels 

 of all kinds, the true tree-squirrels being, as a rule, 

 more gifted than those which live in the ground or 

 burrow in the earth. Even the little ground chip- 

 munks, which are so plentiful in Western America, 

 suggest the unusual intelligence of the squirrel in 

 every movement. When the writer was in South 

 California he used silently to watch them plajdng 

 on the ground and be struck by the same conscious- 

 ness in their movements of being under observation 

 which is so characteristic of our English squirrel 

 in its antics in the trees overhead. It is said that 

 these ground squirrels when kept in captivity will 

 get as used to a revolving cage as the ordinary tree- 

 squirrel, and will take just as much delight in making 

 it turn rapidly. 



It is an interesting fact, the cause of which remains 

 at present unexplained, that our common squirrel 

 is much on the increase in certain parts of Great 

 Britain. Over wide districts in Scotland where 

 the squirrel is now very numerous it was an imknown 

 animal a few decades ago, and this though thick 

 woods abounded. In many places observant pro- 

 prietors attribute the present invasion of the 



