196 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



relsome red of our Eastern woods and the big gray 

 who now largely flourish only in protected regions, 

 taking kindly to parks and college campuses, to 

 the chipmunks and other ground-squirrels, with 

 their extensive underground burrows and hiber- 

 nating habits. Then, too, there are the flying- 

 squirrels which are so exclusively nocturnal in habit 

 that dozens of them may live in the familiar woods, 

 without the ordinary person being aware of it. Our 

 mountain-side is full of them, yet there is scarcely a 

 boy in town who has ever seen one. The red squir- 

 rels can be a great pest. For seven years I lived 

 with a stand of pines overhanging my sleeping- 

 porch, and, just beyond, several fine apple-trees. 

 The red squirrels nested far up in the pines, in two 

 holes, and also in a crotch where they erected a 

 house of twigs and needles. They robbed robins' 

 nests, both eating eggs and killing young birds, 

 amid a tremendous uproar on the part of the parent 

 birds. They invaded the apple-trees before the 

 fruit was quite ripe, nipped off apples, which fell 

 to the ground, and then ran down to pick them up 

 and carry them off, sometimes showing extraordi- 

 nary strength in lifting an apple which, for a man, 

 would be the equivalent of a barrel of apples, and 

 racing up a pine-tree with it. They rose very 

 early, and began to chatter at daybreak. They 

 got into the house and rolled nuts over the 

 attic floor. One even got on the sleeping-porch 

 while my wife and I were still sleeping, and ate 

 seven large holes in a Navajo blanket. How- 

 ever, he paid for that with his life! The red 

 squirrel is a hard worker, and even his robbery is 



