66 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
present moment. The swift had long been gone; 
so had the night-jar; the cuckoo too; and others 
were beginning to follow. 
The cuckoo—his own neighbour and familiar 
friend! Ah, that was why he hadn’t seen him for 
some days past! And then began an unhappy 
time for the squirrel, and every day and every 
hour increased his discontent. The yellowing leaves, 
the chillier evenings, and long nights filled him with 
apprehension of the coming change, and at last he 
resolved that he would not endure it. For why 
should he stay in such a land when all his feathered 
neighbours and friends were now hurrying away to 
a ‘better one. 
Having made up his mind to migrate, he set out 
at dawn of day, and travelled many miles toward 
those blue ‘hills in the south, which turned out to 
be much farther than he had thought. It was not 
until the late afternoon that he arrived at the foot 
of the ridge, feeling more tired and sore-footed 
than he had ever been in his life. Nevertheless he 
was determined not to give in, but to cross the 
hills before dark, and in crossing them perhaps 
view from the summit that beautiful land to which 
he was travelling. And so up and ever up he 
went, finding it more fatiguing every minute, until 
he began to despair of ever reaching the summit. 
And he never did; it was too high, and he was 
now spent with hunger and weakness after his 
long fatiguing day. Furthermore, the hillside grew 
more and more barren and desolate as he got higher, 
