When we realise how our lives are hedged about by butchers, bakers, and
luxury-makers, we often envy the wild creatures their independence. And
yet, although each animal is capable of finding its own food and shelter
and of avoiding all ordinary danger, there is much dependence, one upon
another, among the little creatures of fur and feathers.
The first instinct of a gray squirrel, at the approach of winter, is to
seek out a deep, warm, hollow limb, or trunk. Nowadays, however, these are
not to be found in every grove. The precepts of modern forestry decree
that all such unsightly places must be filled with cement and creosote and
well sealed against the entrance of rain and snow. When hollows are not
available, these hardy squirrels prepare their winter home in another way.
Before the leaves have begun to loosen on their stalks, the little
creatures set to work. The crows have long since deserted their rough nest
of sticks in the top of some tall tree, and now the squirrels come,
investigate, and adopt the forsaken bird's-nest as the foundation of their
home. The sticks are pressed more tightly together, all interstices filled
up, and then a superstructure of leafy twigs is woven overhead and all
around. The leaves on these twigs, killed before their time, do not fall;
and when the branches of the tree become bare, there remains in one of the
uppermost crotches a big ball of leaves,--rain and snow proof, with a tiny
entrance at one side.
On a stormy mid-winter afternoon we stand beneath the tree and, through
the snowflakes driven past by the howling gale, we catch glimpses of the
nest swaying high in air. Far over it leans, as the branches are whipped
and bent by the wind, and yet so cunningly is it wrought that never a twig
or leaf loosens. We can imagine the pair of little shadow-tails within,
sleeping fearlessly throughout all the coming night.
But the sleep of the gray squirrel is a healthy and a natural one, not the
half-dead trance of hibernation; and early next morning their sharp eyes
appear at the entrance of their home and they are out and off through the
tree-top path which only their feet can traverse. Down the snowy trunks
they come with a rush, and with strong, clean bounds they head unerringly
for their little _caches_ of nuts. Their provender is hidden away among
the dried leaves, and when they want a nibble of nut or acorn they make
their way, by some mysterious sense, even through three feet of snow, down
to the bit of food which, months before, they patted out of sight among
the moss and leaves.
It would seem that some exact sub-conscious sense of locality would be a
more probable solution of this feat than the sense of smell, however
keenly developed, when we consider that dozens of nuts may be hidden or
buried in close proximity to the one sought by the squirrel.
Even though the birds seem to have vanished from the earth, and every
mammal be deeply buried in its long sleep, no winter's walk need be barren
of interest. A suggestion worth trying would be to choose a certain area
of saplings and underbrush and proceed systematically to fathom every
cause which has prevented the few stray leaves still upon their stalks
from falling with their many brethren now buried beneath the snow.
The encircling silken bonds of Promethea and Cynthia cocoons will account
for some; others will puzzle us until we have found the traces of some
insect foe, whose girdling has killed the twig and thus prevented the leaf
from falling at the usual time; some may be simply mechanical causes,
where a broken twig crotch has fallen athwart another stem in the course
of its downward fall. Then there is the pitiful remnant of a last summer's
bird's-nest, with a mere skeleton of a floor all but disintegrated.
But occasionally a substantial ball of dead leaves will be noticed, swung
amid a tangle of brier. No accident lodged these, nor did any insect have
aught to do with their position. Examine carefully the mass of leaves and
you will find a replica of the gray squirrel's nest, only, of course, much
smaller. This handiwork of the white-footed or deer mouse can be found in
almost every field or tangle of undergrowth; the nest of a field sparrow
or catbird being used as a foundation and thickly covered over and tightly
thatched with leaves. Now and then, even in mid-winter, we may find the
owner at home, and as the weasel is the most bloodthirsty, so the deer
mouse is the most beautiful and gentle of all the fur-coated folk of our
woods. With his coat of white and pale golden brown and his great black,
lustrous eyes, and his timid, trusting ways, he is altogether lovable.
He spends the late summer and early autumn in his tangle-hung home, but in
winter he generally selects a snug hollow log, or some cavity in the
earth. Here he makes a round nest of fine grass and upon a couch of
thistledown he sleeps in peace, now and then waking to partake of the
little hoard of nuts which he has gathered, or he may even dare to frolic
about upon the snow in the cold winter moonlight, leaving behind him no
trace, save the fairy tracery of his tiny footprints.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring prattle!
ROBERT BURNS.