270 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



ter in my closed-up cottage. A busliel basket filled 

 with butternuts was placed close against the surbase 

 in one of the rooms adjoining the attic. There was 

 no possible way for the squirrel either to enter or see 

 inside the room ; yet he smelled those nuts, and en- 

 tering the attic, gnawed hie way through the parti- 

 tion, and entered the room through the surbase ex- 

 actly at a point apposite the center of the basket ! 



His food in winter, though, is not wholly confined 

 to nuts ; he eats the buds of the maple, oak, and 



birch, and any seeds or 

 ^ dried berries which he 

 can find. He attacks the 

 farmer's corn barn, and, 

 Ainless the corner posts 

 are well protected with 

 P slippery tin, effects an en- 

 trance and carries off the 



"He will deftly handle a cone." g™°- ^ Careful examina- 

 tion of the kernel shows 

 that he eats the germ and leaves the rest. In the 

 evergreen forest he will deftly handle a pine cone, 

 and inverting it cut away scale after scale and devour 

 the seeds hidden between ; in the same manner he 

 demolishes a spruce cone. He does not hibernate, 

 but keeps thus busy all winter long. 



He is an excellent swimmer, and crosses the pond 



