The following story is given us by a gentleman whose veracity we would not
doubt:
About six years ago in the fall a hunter shot a squirrel, which lodged
between two small twigs, the size of a lead pencil. This being near the
man's house, he watched the squirrel each week.
The first spring the twigs grew, and the squirrel remained in the position
it lodged.
The second year the twigs, which had grown to be the size of a man's
fingers, died; so did the limb die.
The third year no change, but during the fourth year the tail of the
squirrel dropped off, and the man noticed no change the fifth, but the
sixth year he secured the limb and squirrel and found, to his surprise,
that the squirrel had become a white oak bump.
Under the microscope could be seen the hairs in the wood. The places for
the eyes and ears were perfect, and where the chin and forelegs had
touched the twig it grew to them. The legs were intact, but the feet had
disappeared. The body of the squirrel had grown to be about four inches in
diameter.
What puzzled the gentleman who gave us this is, through what process could
the dead animal become wood? As proof of the story, we can furnish the
name of the man who has the "freak of nature" in his possession, and who
watched it from the time it first lodged.--_Smith's Grove (Kentucky)
Times._