LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



robbed the nest of its contents and was sleeping 

 off the effects of overeating, but on routing him 

 out and examining the nest I found it to be 

 an abandoned one of the preceding year, and the 

 squirrel innocent, at least of that particular crime. 

 Occasionally you will see one clinging to the 

 baric of some dead pine or hemlock, and listening, 

 woodpecker-like, to the sounds made by the 

 insects at work beneath the surface. When he 

 has succeeded in locating his prey, he tears off 

 the loose bark with his teeth in great ragged 

 pieces, and presently pounces upon and drags 

 forth a flattened white grub an inch or more in 

 length, which he devours with great apparent 

 relish. He appears to subsist, however, mainly 

 on a vegetable diet, not only truit, nuts, and 

 berries, but seeds of maples and other trees ; and 

 he probably knows of other seeds growing about 

 the woods and swamps, and their various times 

 of ripening. He is a veritable epicure as regards 

 mushrooms, and appears to have some infallible 



