SQUIRRELS AND SQUIRREL HUNTING. 193 



are either in their holes, or lying stretched out on some 

 limb sunning themselves, where you will not perceive 

 them. On windy days they scarcely come out at all on 

 the trees, but will stay on the ground, and you will not 

 be so likely to see them unobserved. 



The right season of the year is, of course, the 

 autumn, and for several reasons. In the first place, 

 they are then at work among the nuts, and so their 

 whereabouts can easily be detected by the shucks patter- 

 ing and dropping through the leaves to the earth; in 

 the second place, they are then past the breeding season, 

 and it is more humane to hunt them; in the third place, 

 their flesh is very delicious in the fall, juicy, and tasting 

 of the nuts which they have eaten; and in the fourth 

 place, their skins will not shed the hair after the sum- 

 mer is past, and so can be kept and enjoyed, if you wish 

 to tan or dry them. I have heard of robes made of 

 squirrel skins, and they must have been vei-y warm and 

 comfortable; a real feeling of woods life must come 

 upon one when beneath the squirrel fur. 



Spring, however, is a good time to get the young 

 ones. Young squirrels in springtime are so innocent 

 and so approachable. Having never been hunted, they 

 are very tame. They have not yet learned the differ- 

 ence between good and evil. Their flesh is very sweet 

 and tender then, and almost melts in your mouth. 

 Nothing, however, could be better than a well-broiled 

 squirrel which has been killed on a hickory on a frosty 

 morning in the autumn. I have hunted them at all 

 seasons of the year, before the present restrictive game 

 laws were in force, and I well recollect one winter 

 shooting one from the very top of a bare, leafless 



