182 Wald Life in a Southern County. 
finches use the close-cropped hawthorn. They have 
always a nest there, made of slender fibres dexterously 
interwoven. There, is a group of elms near the further 
end of the enclosure and another by the rickyard ; 
linnets seem fond of elms. 
A pair of squirrels sometimes come down the same 
hedge—it is a favourite highway of wild animals as. 
well as birds—to the orchard, and play in the apple 
trees: they even venture to a tree only a few yards. 
from the house. If not disturbed they stay a good 
while, and then return by the way they came to a 
copse at the top of the meadow. The corner formed 
by the hedge and the copse—quiet, but in easy view 
from the house—is especially frequented by them. 
Their lively motions on the ground are very amusing : 
they visit the ground much oftener than may be 
generally supposed. Fir trees seem to attract them 
—where there is a plantation of firs you may be sure 
of finding a squirrel. 
When alarmed or chased a squirrel always. 
ascends the tree on the opposite side away from you 
—he will not run to a solitary tree if he can possibly 
avoid it: he likes a group, and his trick is, the moment 
he thinks he is out of sight among the upper branches, 
to slip quietly from one tree to the other till, while 
you are scanning every bough, he has travelled fifty 
yards away unnoticed. If the branches are not close 
enough to hide him, he gets as much as possible be- 
hind a large branch, and stretches himself along it— 
