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[Illustration: THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG. Page 202.]
THE SQUIRRELS AND OTHER ANIMALS;
OR,
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF MANY OF
THE SMALLER BRITISH QUADRUPEDS.
BY GEORGE WARING.
LONDON:
HARVEY AND DARTON, GRACECHURCH STREET.
THE SQUIRRELS AND OTHER ANIMALS.
CHAPTER I.
"Bless me, I do believe I have been asleep!" said a squirrel, one fine
morning in early spring, when the delicious warmth of the sun had
reached him in his winter retreat, and roused the lazy little fellow
from a two months' nap. The truth is, that he and his family had fallen
asleep at the first setting in of the cold weather, and had passed the
dismal winter in a state of profound repose, except, that, during a
warm day or two in January, they had roused themselves for a short
time, and eaten a few nuts and acorns from their winter store.
"Yes, I have certainly been asleep," said the squirrel, "and I fancy I
have had a pretty long nap too. Well, I declare, my lazy wife and
children are lying there still, curled up like so many dead things!
Hallo, Mrs. Brush! come, get up and eat some breakfast. Here is the sun
shining in most gloriously at the mouth of the hole, and I hear the
blackbird's merry whistle in the grove below. Ah! they wont move, so
I'll have a run this fine morning, and see how the world looks now.
Perhaps when I come back they may be awake."
So Master Brush went to the entrance of his nest, which was situated at
a great height from the ground, in a commodious hollow of a magnificent
oak-tree.
"Oh joy!" he exclaimed, when he had looked around him for half a
minute, "I see those delicious buds are beginning to sprout. Nobody can
tell how I long for some fresh green food again! Nuts and acorns are
all very well, but then they are _terribly dry_. Here goes for a leap,
then!"
[Illustration: THE SQUIRREL. Page 4.]
So saying, the active little fellow sprang from his hole, and if you
had seen him, you would have thought that no animal without wings could
have ventured upon such a leap without being dashed to pieces upon the
ground. But Brush had nothing to fear; for though he had no wings, he
knew that his beautiful bushy tail, and his legs, stretched out
straight from his body, would bear him up in the air, and prevent his
falling too heavily. Then he had very strong legs for his size,
especially his hind legs, and his claws were so sharp and hooked, that
he could skip along the boughs, without the least danger of falling
off, and he could even run up and down the perpendicular trunks of
trees, almost as easily as we can walk upon the level ground.
So when Brush leaped from the entrance of his hole, instead of falling
to the earth, he pitched lightly upon a bough of the tree a long way
below him, and ran along it for a short distance. Then he leaped to
another bough still lower, from the end of which, he very easily
reached the next tree, and so on, from tree to tree, till he found
himself in a well-known grove of young larches, at some distance. Here
he immediately fell to work, nibbling the fresh green buds and tender
bark. He sat upright, as squirrels generally do when they are eating,
using his fore-feet as hands to hold his food, and very pretty he
looked. But I think, that, if the gamekeeper had seen him injuring the
young trees,[1] he would not have been very well pleased, and perhaps
he would have put his gun to his shoulder and shot poor little Brush,
if he had not received orders to the contrary. For though his master
knew that the squirrels injured his young trees sometimes, he would not
allow them to be killed.
[1] I should be sorry to bring a false accusation against the
squirrels, the most beautiful and entertaining of all the British
quadrupeds. But the whole truth must be told. They _do_
occasionally injure young trees by feeding on the buds and bark;
and a relation of mine, who has an estate in the West of England,
informs me that his plantations have suffered considerably from
their attacks. In his woods, squirrels are unusually abundant,
and in consequence their depredations are the more evident. But,
generally speaking, these animals are not sufficiently numerous
to cause any serious injury to our plantations, and the pleasure
they afford us by exhibiting their wonderful leaps and feats of
agility among the summer branches, more than repay us for their
very trifling thefts.
This gentleman had a particular reason for protecting the squirrels in
his woods. One day the gamekeeper shot a very fine one, and brought it
up to the house as a present for his master's little daughter Jane, who
was confined with a disease from which she never recovered. At first,
the child was pleased with her new plaything, but her tender heart was
pained when she saw its beautiful eyes becoming dim, and recollected
that, perhaps it had left in its nest some young ones, that were
perishing for want of its care. Her grief was increased by fancying
that, as the animal had been killed on purpose for her, she had been
the cause of its death, and though her parents said all they could to
comfort her, they could hardly make her believe that she was not to
blame; for when people are very ill they often have strange fancies.
Poor little Jane died a few days after, and almost the last words she
spoke were, "Papa, don't let Harvey kill any more squirrels." Her
father carefully attended to this request of his darling little
girl--his only child--the joy of his heart--and though, like most
country gentlemen, he was exceedingly angry if any person stole his
game, I believe he would rather have lost fifty pheasants or hares than
one squirrel. _And so would I_, had I been poor little Jane's papa!
But we must not forget Master Brush, who has been seated all this time
in the larch-plantation, making a famous meal upon the aromatic buds
and tender bark. "Ah!" said he to himself, "if those lazy creatures in
the nest yonder did but know what delicious food there is here!" Then
he continued munching and skipping about the trees for some time
longer. But presently the weather began to change. The sun hid his
glorious face behind dark clouds; a fierce easterly wind whistled
through the trees; a cold driving rain came on, and winter seemed to be
returned again.
"Oh, dear me," said Brush, "this will never do! I don't like this sort
of thing at all! the nest is the best place I declare."
When he reached his own tree, he was obliged to ascend to his nest by a
different way, for squirrels cannot leap up to any place that is very
far above them; so he ran along the ground for a little distance, to
the bottom of the oak, which was surrounded by a very close thicket of
brambles.
In this thicket lived several families of dormice, who were Brush's
relations, and the waggish squirrel called out to one of them as he
passed, "Hallo, cousin Gotobed! The summer is almost over. If you don't
make haste, all the nuts and acorns will be gone!" But there was no
possibility of making his cousin Gotobed hear; for you must know, that
a dormouse is a very sleepy little fellow indeed; even more so than a
squirrel.
Brush was soon in his own warm nest, where he found all his family
safe, and sound asleep, as he had left them. This nest, as I have
mentioned, was made in a hole in the upper part of a very large
oak-tree, and was almost as dry and warm as any bedroom in our houses.
It was lined with dry leaves and soft moss, and in another part of the
hole, which was large enough for five or six squirrels' nests, there
was a great heap of nuts, acorns, and beechmast, which the careful
Brush and his family had collected in the autumn.
Besides this stock of food, there were two more hoards, hidden in holes
in different parts of the tree for the cunning squirrels thought, that,
if some thief should wish to rob them of their treasures, he would not
be very likely to discover all three of their storehouses.
If it were not for this large stock of provisions, the poor squirrels
would be starved to death, in very mild winters, because then they do
not sleep so much, and fresh food cannot be procured.
When Brush was in his comfortable nest, safe from the cold wind and
rain, though he had almost filled his stomach with young buds, he
thought he would try one of his nuts, just to see how they had kept
through the winter. Holding the nut in his hands, his sharp teeth soon
gnawed through the shell, and when he had reached the kernel, the
dainty little fellow would not eat a bit till he had carefully removed
every particle of the dry brown skin from it.
"A very sweet nut, I declare," said he, "nuts are not to be despised, after
all. Dear me, I think I feel rather sleepy again! Nuts are not bad things,
but as I was saying before, rather dry, when one has nothing else. But
really I am very sleepy. 'Tis either the cold wind, or the famous
breakfast I have made, I suppose;--very sleepy--indeed,--upon--my--word."
The last words sounded exactly as your voice would, if your head was
covered up under the bed-clothes. The truth is, that, while Brush was
talking to himself, he had gradually changed his position from sitting
upright to lying down on his side. Then he slowly rolled himself up
into a round ball, with his head and back closely covered by his
beautiful tail. This served him famously for a blanket, and so we may
say, that his last words were really spoken _with his head under the
bed-clothes_.
By way of filling up the time till the fine weather returns, and our
sleeping friend uncurls himself again, I will give you a very short
description of another sort of squirrel, which lives in the woods of
America, and is even a much better leaper than ours. It is called the
flying squirrel, though that is not a very proper name, for it cannot
really fly; I mean that it cannot raise itself from the ground, like a
bird can. But it can leap to a surprising distance, for besides a large
bushy tail, it has a very curious membrane, or skin, on each side of
its body, reaching from the fore to the hind leg. So when the flying
squirrel leaps, it stretches out this skin as wide as possible, and as
the air bears it up, it appears almost to _fly_ from one tree to
another. Travellers who have seen them, tell us that when a number of
them leap at the same time, they appear, at a distance, like leaves
blown off by the wind.