SQUIRRELS 3 



The so-called flying squirrel does this the most 

 perfectly. It opens its furry vestments, leaps 

 into the air, and sails down the steep incline from 

 the top of one tree to the foot of the next as 

 lightly as a bird. But other squirrels know the 

 same trick, only their coat-skirts are not so broad. 

 One day my dog treed a red squirrel in a tall 

 hickory that stood in a meadow on the side of a 

 steep hill. To see what the squirrel would do 

 when closely pressed, I climbed the tree. As I 

 drew near he took refuge in the topmost branch, 

 and then, as I came on, he boldly leaped into the 

 air, spread himself out upon it, and, with a quick, 

 tremulous motion of his tail and legs, descended 

 quite slowly and landed upon the ground thirty 

 feet below me, apparently none the worse for the 

 leap, for he ran with great speed and eluding the 

 dog took refuge in another tree. 



A recent American traveler in Mexico gives a 

 still more striking instance of this power of squir- 

 rels partially to neutralize the force of gravity 

 when leaping or falling through the air. Some 

 boys had caught a Mexican black squirrel, nearly 

 as large as a cat. It had escaped from them once, 

 and, when pursued, had taken a leap of sixty feet, 

 from the top of a pine-tree down upon the roof 

 of a house, without injury. This feat had led 

 the grandmother of one of the boys to declare 



