70 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
he will make his way, or try to, over wide stretches 
of barren, unpromising country. Thus, when trees 
are planted in a treeless district, by and by 
squirrels make their appearance, even when their 
nearest known haunts are many miles distant. Nor 
is this only an occasional outbreak of a gipsy roving 
disposition of the animal, since he too is subject 
to migratory impulses at the same time of year 
as the birds. In some countries large numbers of 
squirrels are affected simultaneously in this way, 
and have been observed migrating, many perishing 
when attempting to cross rivers too wide or swift 
for them. | 
I also liked the story because it recalled a 
squirrel’s adventure told to me a short time before 
by an old fisherman at Wells-next-the-Sea, in Nor- 
folk. Wells lies at the edge of a marsh a mile and 
a quarter back from the sea, and has a harbour, a 
river or estuary which at full tide is deep enough 
to enable small vessels to come up to the town. 
Near the river’s mouth there is a row of tall guiding 
poles in the channel, and one afternoon my in- 
formant noticed a squirrel sitting hunched up on 
the summit of the outermost pole, about thirty 
feet above the water. Evidently he had come 
through the pine plantation on the sand-dunes on 
the Holkham or north side of the river; but, 
anxious to continue his travels southward along 
the shore and over the vast flat saltings towards 
Blakeney, he had cast himself into the river at low 
tide, and finding the current too strong, had just 
