NUTS. 167 



hide-and-seek among the bushes, and watched 

 their harvesting. One of these was the saucy 

 red Squirrel. He glided along the branches 

 like a sunbeam, and constituted our dark-eyed 

 miracle of the forest. He would watch our 

 approach, then glide up the high hazel and 

 survey us from above. Then he perked his ears 

 and chattered, and once let down a full-ripe 

 filbert close at our feet. On examining this 

 we found how he came at its contents, and 

 often after watched him in the process. He 

 would sit upon his haunches, half hidden in 

 the foliage, holding a cluster of nuts. These 

 he held in his forepaws, and would presently 

 abstract one, allowing the rest to drop. After 

 adroitly securing the nut, he quickly rasped 

 away the small end, and, having made a hole, 

 inserted his fore teeth and split the shell. He 

 ate only the largest and soundest nuts, and 

 was careful to pare off every particle of the 

 brown skin of the kernel before beginning to 

 eat. The Dormouse and Fieldmouse adopt a 

 somewhat different method of coming at the 

 contents. They gnaw a bole in the shell, 

 though so small that the wonder is how the 

 kernel is ever extracted through it. 



