SQUIRRELS AND SQUIRREL HUNTING. 197 



of their paws upon the bark of the trees or along the 

 top rails of the fences. Listen! Yes, he is surely 

 there, and eagerly at work, and he will not notice you 

 unless you make too much noise; for a squirrel likes 

 his meals as much as we do. But shake a sapling, and 

 he will go to the other side of the tree, where John can 

 have a crack at him. I have seen as many as five in a 

 single tree, all of them seated on different limbs, with 

 their tails over their heads, and nuts in their paws, nib- 

 bling away for dear life. I have heard of as many as 

 twenty being seen in a single tree, in the autumn, mak- 

 ing havoc among the nuts; but I rather suspect the 

 multiplication table was used in that story, or the mag- 

 nifying glass, or some other agency that increased the 

 number. It is a common adventure, this, however, in 

 autumn, to find several at work in one well-stocked 

 hickory or beech — and then what a pattering there is 

 of the shucks, the ground being covered with the 

 gnawed bits. If these dropped pieces beneath the trees 

 are fresh, then you may know the squirrels have not 

 left their feeding ground, and you can bide your time 

 for them presently to appear. But, if they are browned 

 over and evidently a few days old, it is likely the squir- 

 rels have either been killed or have sought new and 

 better mast. They will not always desert their tree, if 

 the nuts are plentiful, even though they know you are 

 below, and hear you ; but they will perhaps simply 

 scamper up to the top and there conceal themselves for 

 a time, perhaps reaching for another nut and eating 

 it there amid the branchlets, the numerous leaves them- 

 selves being indeed an empalement for them, so that 

 you will scarcely discern them except by the tossing or 



