84 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
secret of the illimitable wing of this lonely spirit of 
the sky, whose companions are the clouds? As you 
sit on a log, some winter day, absorbed in watching 
the buzzard wheeling in the sky, you become con- 
scious of something moving on the ground, and look 
down in time to see a striped chipmunk whisk be- 
hind a stump. Again, your unsuspected companion 
may be a gray squirrel who betrays himself by a 
quick motion, as he flirts his bushy tail around a tree- 
trunk to get out of sight. Squirrels are no longer 
abundant here, they have been hunted so remorse- 
lessly, but in the fall the gray squirrel comes in com- 
panies to harvest the nuts of your trees, — or, may 
it be, only for a little excursion out into the world? 
The shy little red squirrel who hides in the depths 
of the woods is known as the "mountain boomer," a 
name also derisively applied to the mountaineer by 
his low-country neighbors, whose own title, equally 
descriptive one supposes, is "tar-heel." 
Another rodent, abundant but seldom molested, 
is the pretty little flying-squirrel, whose form may 
sometimes be seen at dusk bridging the space be- 
tween one tree-top and another, like a miniature 
aeroplane. He is a gentle little creature, but a sad 
rascal, who hides by day and chases up and down 
between your walls at night, coming into the house 
and gnawing to pieces whatever excites his admira- 
tion, though he never deigns to taste your food. 
Although a nuisance, he is better than rats, which, 
the people say, never come to a house occupied by 
flying-squirrels. Of course the common rat is here as 
