tHE SqUIBIlEL. 



snow-flake. Hats, caps, sticks, and all available missHea are 

 immediately flung at the luckless animal as soon as it touches 

 the ground, and it is very probably struck and overwhelmed by 

 a cap. The successful hurler flings himself upon the cap, and 

 tries to seize the squirrel as it hes under his property. All his 

 companions gather round him, and great is the disappointment 

 to find the cap empty and to see the squirrel triumphantly 

 scampering up some tree where it would be useless to follow it." 



The squirrel is a hibernating animal, and providently antici- 

 pates the dearth of winter by accumulating a store of nuts and 

 acorns. About the first week in October is the time when the 

 squirrel may be seen in the oak and the nut trees, as busy as 

 a " pole-puller " in a Kentish hop-garden. With a critical eye 

 he examines a bunch of nuts, picking out the brownest and the 

 ripest, and never, by any chance, is he guilty of the indiscre- 

 tion of taking home a nut into which, or, rather, out of which, 

 a maggot has bored. He seems, too, to be aware of that 

 excellent maxim, — " never trust all your eggs in one basket." 

 He well knows that if all his hoard were trusted in one maga- 

 zine, and that magaziue should be discovered and plundered, 

 there is nothing left but starvation ; so he deposits his collec- 

 tion in ten or a dozen different holes and crevices, and such is 

 his wonderful power of memory, that though the snow may 

 fall and cover, to the depth of a foot, the place where his nuts 

 are, he knows their whereabouts to an iach, and scratches 

 straight down to them with a confidence that is invariably 

 rewarded with success. 



That is, unless burglary has been perpetrated, which not 

 unfrequently happens. A gentleman residing in Hampshire 

 informed me that at the close of one autumn he lit on a squir- 

 rel busy at the stump of a tree, and on closely inspectiag the 

 spot discovered in a hole in the bark as many nuts as would 

 fill a gin measure. He took no further notice at the time, but 

 passing the same spot the foUowuig week he had another peep 

 at the savings-bank, and found that there had been several 

 fresh deposits. He took out the whole of the treasure and 

 filled up the hole with pebbles. He thought no more about 

 the matter tiU the following January, when he chanced once 

 more to come near the same spot. It was a very hard winter, 

 and the snow lay at least ten inches deep ; he had no difiiculty, 

 however, in finding the industrious little squirrel's store-room, 

 for it was evident it had paid it a visit but a very little time 

 before. The snow was brushed clean from about it, and every 



