SQUIRRELS 



leaves extended without a break half-way across 

 the stream, and in another instant the squirrel was 

 fairly afloat among them. Without showing 

 much alarm at his predicament, however, he 

 turned, and swimming in a half circle, as easily 

 as a mink, with just the top of his head and 

 a narrow strip along his back and tail in sight, 

 landed a few yards further down, when for the 

 first time his unfitness for that sort of thing be- 

 came apparent. A mink or muskrat on emerg- 

 ing from the water gives himself a shake and in 

 a very few minutes is as dry and furry as ever. 

 But this particular squirrel was literally wet to 

 the skin, and the more he shook himself the 

 worse he looked, for while here and there a tuft 

 of fur attempted to resume its former position, 

 by far the larger part of it remained flattened close 

 to his hide, the effect of which his pitiful little 

 shred of a tail only heightened as he scrambled 

 over the water-soaked roots and up the trunk of 

 an ash-tree, where, seated on a projecting knot, 



223 



