24 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP 
hoards of food reported laid up for winter use. 
Our grays store no “hoards” in the ordinary sense 
of the word, though both our red and our ground 
squirrels do so. 
What the gray squirrels do is this: as soon as 
nuts and acorns begin to ripen in the autumn, they 
gather them with great industry, and bury them 
one by one, separately. They do this diligently and 
furtively, attracting no more attention than they 
can help. Hopping about in the grass until they 
have chosen a place, a hole, perhaps two inches 
deep, is hastily scraped out, the nut is pushed to 
the bottom and covered up. The animal then 
stamps down the earth and hurries away, hoping 
it has not been seen. They never bury the food 
given them or found in the summer, but in the fall 
will save and bury along with their wild provender 
the nuts and occasionally grains of corn taken from 
the window-sills. 
Whether any of these are dug up before mid- 
winter I do not know; I think not. The squirrels 
wander off into the woods when the mast is ripe, 
and get fat upon the oily food. But when this 
harvest is over, and their stores must be drawn 
upon, their ability in discovering them is wonder- 
ful. They seem to know precisely the spot in the 
grass where each nut is buried, and will go directly 
to it; and I have seen them hundreds of times, 
when the snow was more than a foot deep, wade 
floundering through it straight to a certain point, 
