HUNTING WITH THE LONG-BOW. 
fields, and deaden ings. His 
cluck is the most familiar 
sound Iieard in our rural dis- 
tricts, tlie note of the red- 
headed woodpecker excepted. 
He is a size smaller than the 
chickaree, ofvmountaiu squir- 
rel, feeds on nuts, acorns, and 
grain, and is by; most farmers 
considered an irrepressible 
pest. 
The flying-squirrel ( Piero - 
mijs voluceUa) is little larger 
than a large mouse, light gray on the hack 
and silver white below. It has rat-like eyes, 
and a singular membrane or flap at each 
side running from the fore to the hind legs. 
It seems to me of little kin to the squirrels 
proper — scarcely as much as the owl is to 
the eagle. It is strictly nocturnal in its 
habits, and, like the bat, spends-, the day- 
time sleeping in dark places — holes in trees, 
and behind loose bark in deadenings. I have 
seen them from the Gulf States to the North- 
ern lake regions. In the hill country of the 
South, where most people live 
in open log-houses, the flying- 
squirrels are sometimes more 
troublesome to housewives 
than rats. While Will and 
I were sojourning in Chero- 
kee, Georgia, the family with 
whom we were living became 
greatly annoyed by the night- 
ly visits of a swarm of these 
winged rodents. They came 
into the house, squeaked and 
chattered, used their teeth on 
every thing they found, cut clothing and 
table linen to pieces, and, despite a cat or 
two, ran about the floors and up and down 
the walls all night long. Filially, thorough- 
ly bent on putting a stop to, their orgies, Will 
and I one bright moon-lit night watched 
for them, and found that most of them came 
from an old dead pine stump, some fifty feet 
high and two feet in diameter, which stood 
fifty yards from the house. Early the next 
morning our bows Were strung and business 
commenced. We found the old stump lit- 
erally lioney-connbed with holes made by 
woodpeckers. In these the flying-squirrels 
up their ab( 
had taken up 
abode. A heavy blow on 
the stump with the back of an axe brought 
half a doze/i of the frightened little pests, 
each one running to the top and sailing off', 
falling at an angle of about fifteen or twenty 
ed that morning k great number of flying- 
squirrels, and after that our sleep was peace- 
ful, and our dreams Uninterrupted* by their 
clatter. Besides, we rec^ved a vote of thanks 
from the family we had thus relieved. 
The cool green ways of our woods have 
no livelier or more interesting inhabitants 
than the squirrels, and, if wc\except a few 
game birds, the sportsman finds no animal 
that offers finer sport or sweeter .meat. Of 
all the merry days spent by Will and me in 
our woods and fields with bow and quiver, 
those are about the merriest whieliXinclose 
our life among the squirrels. This k, per- 
haps, much owing to the fact that tint sea- 
sons for hunting these active little fella ws 
fall in the two finest stretches of weatlVr 
seen in our climate — the last days of sprin) 
and the early ripening time of autumn. 
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