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OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN AND ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
One Year 25 Centos 
__ Single Copy 3 Centos 
Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society, at, Appleton Wisconsin. 
Entered as second-class matter May 16, 1904 at App leton, Wis., under the act of congress of Mar. 3, ’79 
VOL. VII 
DECEMBER, 1904 
No. 6 
COLD DAYS. 
I. 
Do you guess, little birds, how we long 
For the gay flitting sight of you? Now 
That the icy trees, empty, belong 
To the wind driven torrents of snow. 
H. 
Do you guess how kindly fate treats you? 
As the warm pleasant world bright with' flow¬ 
ers 
At the end of your airy flight greets you 
With God’s gentlest gift, sunny hours. 
m. 
Your nests you have left us to prove 
That you think of our land as your home. 
The snow sprinkled Christmas trees love 
Them as they hang there like gifts for a 
gnome. 
Ethel E. Hooper. 
GRAY SQUIRRELS. 
Gray squirrels are friendly creatures and 
may be tamed very easily, being much more 
gentle than the red ones. 
-Near our house there are many of them liv¬ 
ing among the trees, although it is in the town 
and within a block of the electric cars. 
Boys stone them, I regret to say, and I 
have seen even men leave their wagons to 
throw stones at a squirrel sitting on our win¬ 
dow sill or running up the elm by the gate. 
Luckily th'at kind of man or boy who will 
throw stones at a squirrel is generally the kind 
who cannot aim well, so the squirrels are not 
hit. 
Dogs chase them, but as soon as the squir¬ 
rel is out of reach on a tree, it generally turns 
about, faces the dog and watches his vain en¬ 
deavors to jump up to th'e squirrel. Often it 
has seemed to us that the squirrel was 
laughing at the dog and thoroughly enjoying 
the whole performance. 
Cats lie in wait for them and spring on 
them, and occasionally get the tips of a 
bush'y tail, but I have seen a big yellow cat 
turn and slink under its owner’s piazza when 
a squirrel suddenly stopped and faced it. 
Blue jays have a standing quarrel with them 
and when five or six of these big birds, with 
their strong beaks and wings, attack one poor 
squirrel it will lead them a chase over the 
trees, leaping from a bough of one to a branch' 
of another, until it reaches some Avell known 
hole into which it can crawl and there be 
safe. 
In spite of all these enemies, and all are 
abundant here, the squirrels are very tame. 
They come on our window-sills, climbing up 
the trumpet-creeper, for nuts, water, and any 
food we may give them. The mother spuirrels 
are almost always more trusting and friend¬ 
ly than the fathers or the babies, and soon 
learn to come when we call them, to eat from 
our hands, and even to enter the house and 
climb into our laps. 
We put nuts on the sill of one window and 
when all have been taken the squirrels stand 
up and peer into the room. If no one is there 
they go away, but if they see one of us they 
tap on the window with a fore-paw until that 
person comes with nuts. Then th'ey can hard¬ 
ly wait for the window to be opened, and as 
soon as the space is wide enough in comes a 
gray head, and tries to get a nut from the 
handful ready to be put on the window-sill. 
Sometimes we hear a little tapping at the 
