244 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
observation that this was a regular squirrel trail. Then, too, 
rabbits, wood rats, and bullfrogs frequented this spring place 
which promised to provide adequately for his needs during the 
remaining part of late summer and fall. 
Now, some may ask how I came to know that he was about 
this spot, inasmuch as I never saw him—not even his trail 
again. To answer such query involves one of his most inter¬ 
esting secrets. Seeing that it would be most indiscreet to wail 
too loudly and long, he adopted the note of birds chirping. It 
is rather significant that such chirping so closely resembled 
other birds common to this locality that all but the closest 
observers would be completely deceived by this old wizard. 
For days and weeks he would conceal his physical being within 
this dense tangle, and would endeavor to conceal his identity 
behind the chirping of birds he so perfectly imitated. On pre¬ 
vious occasions when I had definitely identified his call, it was 
never uttered in broad daylight, but now notice was taken of 
the fact that he was employing a wholly different note and 
might be heard almost any hour of the day. 
On occasions he would go deep into the swamp, squirrel 
hunting, and could be heard chirping continuously until a late 
hour of the night, always calling to his mate from the same 
spot for a whole day and night. Then, in all probability, he 
would next be heard two or three hundred feet from this spot. 
When the neighbor’s boys, with squirrel dogs, commenced 
hunting inside the swamp he would, for the sake of safety, 
come back up on the hillside to the spring place. One might 
walk down to the spring as silently as a Seminole, but would 
never get a glimpse of the bird he thought he was hearing. 
Ladies of the household would report hearing a rustling noise 
in the undergrowth as he stole away through the underbrush 
silently as a slippered monk. It did not take long to definitely 
establish the fact that he entertained little fear of lady mem¬ 
bers of the household, but would chirp as loud as he pleased, 
and as long as he cared to, when the premises were guarded 
by the latter. 
On one occasion he filled me with a very definite suspicion 
that he actually imitated the barking of cat squirrels for the 
