112 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



But the deer mice do not always carry their 

 supplies home in this manner ; they often hide 

 them in the nearest convenient place. I have 

 known them to carry a pint or more of hickory 

 nuts and deposit them in a pair of boots stand- 

 ing in the chamber of an outhouse. Near the 

 chestnut-trees they will fill little pocket-like de- 

 pressions in the ground* with chestnuts; in a 

 grain-field they carry the grain under stones ; 

 under some cover beneath cherry-trees they col- 

 lect great numbers of cherry-pits. Hence, when 

 cold weather comes, instead of staying at home 

 like the chipmunk, they gad about hither and 

 thither looking up their supplies. One may see 

 their tracks on the snow everywhere in the 

 woods and fields and by the roadside. The 

 advantage of this way of living is that it leads 

 to activity, and probably to sociability. 



One day, on my walk in the woods, I saw 

 at one point the mice-tracks unusually thick 

 around a small sugar-maple. It was doubtless 

 their granary ; they had beech-nuts stored there, 

 I '11 warrant. There were two entrances to the 

 cavity of the tree, — one at the base, and one 

 seven or eight feet up. At the upper one, which 

 was only just of the size of a mouse, a squir- 

 rel had been trying to break in. He had cut and 

 chiseled the solid wood to the depth of nearly an 



