82 
SQUIRRELS. 
S 
spreading abroad their limbs, so as to make their bodies as parachute-like as 
possible, to break their fall; and, on reaching the ground without harm, 
bound along for the few intervening paces, and ascend the tree with a 
celerity almost too quick for the eye to follow. 
THE GEAY 8QU1RKKL. 
In a domestic state, squirrels are kept in a cage—many persons confine 
them to a miserably small one. What notions of things such people must 
have ! Think of a free, liberty-loving creature to be 
“ Cabin’d, cribb’d, confined,” 
in a small space of a square foot, in which every motion tends to the brush¬ 
ing off or grinding down of the most beautiful tail in the whole order of mam- 
miferous creation! Oh, my good young friends, if you do keep a squirrel, 
let him have elbow-room 1 Teach him as much as possible to forget his 
native woods, by the freedom you give him in his prison. Let his cage be 
at least six feet long, and four high; let it have perches like the branch of a 
tree; let him have a sleeping-box, opening with a door behind, for the pur¬ 
pose of cleaning it; let him have a food-box and water-pan, nicely ad¬ 
justed, both of which ought to be of glass; while the edges of his cage 
should all be covered with tin, or else the love of liberty will soon give him 
means to escape. The movable, or turn-about, cage is a most unnatural 
affair; it induces the animal to perpetual up-hill running, with the un¬ 
pleasant feeling of the hill sliding under him, which is neither good for his 
health or recreation. It is, in fact, a species of misery. The custom, too, 
of chaining them by a collar, like a dog, is a very foolish one. Chain a 
squirrel! Why, it is like chaining the air itself, or “ putting manacles upon 
