614 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 21, 1911. 
row slit, and afterward I had to lift the cover 
by placing my fingers on the lower edge. The 
first time I did this Cute went to the pail when 
the seed box was empty and looked for the ring. 
He sniffed at the slit, then seemed to remember 
how I had removed the cover with my fingers, 
for he at once smelled around the edge until 
he found the right spot, then took off the cover 
and turned it upside down as neatly and quickly 
as I could have done it. He seemed to think 
the seeds were in the cover and that was why 
he had turned it upside down. A few days later 
finding no seeds in the cover, he simply pushed 
it off. This did not appeal to me, for I wanted 
to see Cute turn the cover over for the benefit 
of my visitors. I refused to give him seeds, so 
he put up a great fight. After a dozen attempts 
he gave in and turned the cover over in the old 
way. He did not forget the lesson, but often 
when he had satisfied his appetite he would push 
the cover off in play. Usually he put his head 
and forepaws in the pail, and would not quit 
until I had pinched him severely. Sometimes 
this play was repeated for five minutes or more, 
then Cute would take off the cover and turn it 
over to show me that he had not forgotten, but 
he did not stop to eat a seed, running away with 
a merry chatter. 
Cute eventually became known to people in 
nearly every State in the Union with a sprink¬ 
ling from foreign countries. 
Cute’s mate either by observation or informa¬ 
tion learned to take of? the cover when the seed 
box was empty. Other squirrels saw how Cute 
and his mate managed to get seed from the pail, 
but they did nothing but smell around without 
attempting to remove the cover. Why the other 
squirrels did not imitate Cute and his mate 
might be explained by lack of human imitation. 
A wire puzzle afforded much amusement to 
my visitors, and scores of them worked at it, 
some to succeed and others to fail. Many could 
not do the puzzle, even after looking on while 
I did it for them. I put the squirrel’s intelligence 
against this human intelligence, so accounted for 
the lack of imitation seen in some of my wild 
pets. 
June 28, 1908, on returning from the city I 
found my dooryard deserted. All the squirrels 
had disappeared. I was satisfied that the squir¬ 
rels had migrated. For twenty-six years I have 
lived in the woods with the wild things. This 
intimate association has brought to my knowl¬ 
edge the fact that animal ways are not so far 
removed from human ways as people have been 
led to think. I was providing over one-half the 
food consumed by the squirrels, which made the 
desertion appear strange, but I knew there were 
good and sufficient reasons. The reasons in this 
case were the two pests that are destroying the 
forests of the Commonwealth. The oak trees 
had been stripped by the browntail and gypsy 
caterpillars. The wise little squirrels had looked 
the trees over, and had concluded that there 
would be no acorns in the fall to fill a store 
house. Without doubt they knew that they cou'd 
depend on me for food, but such bounty would 
not educate the young squirrels to the proper 
squirrel life. Some such reasoning as this led 
to migration. 
There was a valley three-fourths of a mile 
from my cabin not infested by the caterpillars. 
I went down to the valley and as I expected 
found the squirrels there. I counted four nests 
in as many tall pines. These nests had been 
made beforehand with migration in view. Cute 
and his mate ran down a pine tree and gave me 
greeting. I put two small piles of hemp seed 
on a boulder and both squirrels were soon busy 
with the feast. While I was in the valley three 
mother squirrels appeared with young squirrels 
revell’s island club house. 
ACCOMAC CLUB HOUSE. 
which they tugged up the bole of the tree to 
their respective nests. They carried the young¬ 
sters by the neck just as a cat carries her kitten. 
The next year, in June, Cute came to the cabin 
for the first time. He found the seed box 
empty, but immediately went to the pail and re¬ 
moved the cover. He sat up, folded his paws 
and waited for me to fill the seed box as of old. 
There are writers of natural history that deny 
memory to the lower animals, but Cute certainly 
had a year-old memory, arid his mate went him 
one better, for she did not return until June, 
1910, yet remembered the trick. 
The next summer after the migration the 
caterpillars swarmed into the valley and de¬ 
stroyed the acorn crop. Again the squirrels , 
migrated; this time they selected a nesting site 
nearer the cabin. Congress appropriated money 
to help fight the moths in Massachusetts and the 
sum is expended along the highways in the 
woods. A strip 100 feet on each side is kept 
nearly free of caterpillars. The squirrels found 
out where the acorns could grow and hence the 
second migration. 
At the present time I have a box nailed to 
a pine tree in my dooryard. The box is covered 
with wire netting, the mesh small enough to bar 
the squirrels, but chickadees and nuthatches can 
reach the hemp seeds without effort. The box 
has fooled the squirrels save Cute and his mate. 
After I put up the box, Cute came round and 
tried to remove the wire without success. Find¬ 
ing the wire fast, he stopped, sat up, folded his 
paws and gave me a piece of his mind. After 
awhile he looked the box over, but did not try 
the wire again. He sat up at last and seemed 
to be thinking. Suddenly he thrust his right 
paw through the mesh and grasped a handful 
of seed. He had solved the problem. His mate 
soon learned the trick. Most humans are right- 
handed and so are these little rodents; they 
never use the left paw when pulling seed from 
the box. 
Young squirrels are born in April, and remain 
with their parents through the succeeding win¬ 
ter. All are fed from the family storehouse. 
Cute and his mate come to my cabin from three 
to five times each week. They come in the morn¬ 
ing and want hemp seed for themselves and 
doughnut for the babies. If I give one a very 
small piece of doughnut, he or she will eat it on 
the spot. If it is as much as one-quarter, it 
will be hid in a tree to be carried home later. 
Give either of them one-half a doughnut and 
away they run home to the babies. 
After all some human egotist who has not 
laid up an acorn for winter will sit up and tell 
us that man is the only animal that thinks. 
Hog Island and Vicinity 
By LIPPINCOTT 
H OG ISLAND, as it will always be remem¬ 
bered by native longshoremen and sports¬ 
men of this generation, notwithstanding the 
more euphonious title Broadwater that has re¬ 
cently been given it, is anchored in the Atlantic 
Ocean some ten miles off the coast of Virginia 
and about twenty miles north of the mouth of 
Chesapeake Bay. 
The better known Cobb’s Island lies just south 
of Hog Island, and an alluring place it used to 
be for the sporting fraternity. The sea broke 
forcefully upon the exposed side, while on the 
other there was a calm salt water bay stretch¬ 
ing out for miles toward the mainland, and this 
afforded a haven for geese, swans and ducks. 
Shore birds visited the island in great numbers, 
and oysters, clams, crabs, terrapin and various 
kinds of fish seemed inexhaustible. So many 
combinations of enjoyable pastimes could be in¬ 
dulged in on this island day after day, that it 
became probably the most popular resort for 
sportsmen on the Atlantic coast, but the sea, by 
persistent pounding upon the shore line, cut fur¬ 
ther and further into it, until the buildings of 
the settlement were undermined one by one, and 
finally all trace of what had been there was 
swept away, excepting only a narrow strip of 
sand known as a bar. 
Hog Island resists the assaults of the sea and 
is now well wooded with sweet' smelling pine 
trees, and in the midst of a grove of these the 
Broadwater Sportsman’s Club has attractive 
headquarters. Some 300 people inhabit this isl¬ 
and throughout the year, and excepting those 
