Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
MORE ABOUT THE SQUIRRELS.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The squirrel sprang here, there, and everywhere. _See
page 29._]
* * * * *
MORE ABOUT THE SQUIRRELS
BY
ELEANOR TYRRELL
AUTHOR OF “HOW I TAMED THE WILD SQUIRRELS,” ETC.
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
* * * * *
[Illustration]
* * * * *
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
PART I. MORE ABOUT THE SQUIRRELS 15
PART II. THE TRAGEDY 45
PART III. FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS 65
* * * * *
[Illustration]
LIST OF COLOURED PLATES.
The squirrel sprang here, there, and everywhere _Frontispiece_
The snow was falling so thickly I could scarcely see him 32
I saw them huddled together on the floor of the cage 48
Laurence hid himself in the twinkling of an eye 64
She coquetted with the birds round the drinking pan 80
Seven furry infants!... The heartlessness of it! 96
* * * * *
[Illustration]
FOREWORD.
Amongst the many satisfactions of writing is that of receiving letters
of appreciation from unknown friends. From all parts of the United
Kingdom, from Canada and from South Africa, animal lovers have written
to me expressing their pleasure in reading “How I Tamed the Wild
Squirrels,” published in the autumn of 1914 by Messrs. Nelson and Sons,
Ltd. The note most frequently struck is that of gratitude for something
to think about that had lessened for a while the sadness and depression
caused by this terrible war.
That many of these correspondents have asked for more tidings of Fritz
and his companions, must be my excuse for putting forth another book
about them--again illustrated by Miss Appleton’s clever and delicate
pen and brush.
Fritz has now enjoyed the liberty of the garden for four years. His
first wife deserted him after the advent--from the country of the
Huns--of a fierce little red compatriot, who would brook no rival.
She and he have since produced a most charming orange and gray son,
who happily shows all his father’s sweet confidence and none of his
mother’s truculence.
Young Fritz is now a daily visitor to my bedroom, and, to the joy of
our young people, sometimes finds his way to other parts of the house.
Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Housman are rarely seen. Fritz, as the
first-comer, has stood his ground and chased them far. Occasionally in
bitter weather, or in early spring (when food is most scarce), they
will furtively creep back to the old squirrel-house--the door of which
is always open--to steal the secreted nuts of the Fritz family. And,
as proof of their domestic felicity, comes sometimes a mysterious and
beautiful young black-tailed squirrel--a tail orange-tipped, with
delicate markings of gray.
Is it possible that these two fiery-red beings have produced a creature
so unlike themselves? I think it is. Red-haired human parents sometimes
have black-haired children, so why should not squirrels?
In Nature study one is always learning, refuting former deductions
and coming to conclusions which, after more patient observation,
prove themselves false. Thus I recollect bemoaning my little Fritz’s
miserable and mangy appearance in the month of July, after six months
of liberty. And I said in “How I Tamed the Wild Squirrels” that I
thought these little animals, given proper food and space for exercise,
are happier and better off in captivity than when running wild. I have
since learned that all male adult squirrels look miserable and mangy
in July, because they are then “changing their tails.”
One hears people exclaim: “I have just seen a dear little squirrel. It
must be quite a baby, for it had no hair on its tail.” Young squirrels
in July, and long before, are very fully furred, and have delightful
tails. It is their fathers who are going about thus dilapidated. The
mothers change a little later in the year.
But space forbids more on this fascinating subject. My thanks are due
to Messrs. Nelson for turning out both books so attractively, and at a
price so moderate. And especially are they due to Miss Appleton for her
careful and charming illustrations.
Go forth then, little book, with my love to all squirrel lovers young
and old.
ELEANOR TYRRELL.
ST. KATHERINE’S, HOOK HEATH, ABOVE WOKING.
PART I. MORE ABOUT THE SQUIRRELS.
* * * * *
[Illustration: St Katherine’s. Hook Heath.]
* * * * *
[Illustration]
MORE ABOUT THE SQUIRRELS.
As I am often asked about the little beasts whose adventures were set
forth in “How I Tamed the Wild Squirrels,” perhaps a further account of
my furry friends will not come amiss.
I no longer keep any of them confined. After the death of three in the
winter of 1914, I resolved that, dear and fascinating as they were as
little companions in my room, I would never have them caged and in
artificial conditions again.
There are two pairs of Germans loose in our little wood--Mr. and Mrs.
Fritz and Mr. and Mrs. Laurence; while the wild Surrey ones, the little
natives, come to the garden from the firs on the railway cutting.
There is no doubt that Fritz, the German, with his superior strength
and masterfulness, drove away that first little colony which I had
tamed so wonderfully. Toto had met a tragic death, killed by a
marauding cat. Tito and Tara and the dainty little thing I used to
call Miss Fritz after a time took up their quarters elsewhere. I have
since come to the conclusion that Miss Fritz was not Miss Fritz--more
probably Miss Tito. As she grew to maturity she proved herself entirely
a Surrey squirrel. There was no tint of orange or gray about her, and
she remained when full-grown as small and dainty as the rest, showing
not a sign of the German larger, coarser breed.
[Illustration]
Besides, had Fritz been her father, she would not have disappeared
from the wood. Young squirrels remain with their parents, I am told,
for a year. Fritz had been assiduous in his attentions to a very
charming squirrel with a lovely tail, whom for some time I had called
Mrs. Fritz, but she too vanished in September 1913 and left him master
of the wood.
He became very lonely. It was poor fun to be cock of the walk when
there was none to dispute his sway. Consequently, during the autumn,
he took to visiting Wych Hill, Hurstgate, and Allen House, where the
owners, also admirers of squirrels, were in the habit of hanging out
cocoanuts and other dainties to attract them.
[Illustration]
It has always been a mystery to me how he contrived to get to these
plantations across the heath without being seen. To reach them he had
to cross two wide public roads bristling with motor cars, bicycles,
errand boys, and dogs. Besides crossing these dangerous zones, he must
(unless he went a circuitous route by fir trees, quite a mile round)
have traversed an open gorsy heath. Had he his little runs, I wondered,
as rabbits have? And how dangerous, with watchful cats and lynx-eyed
terriers about! As long as he could keep to the trees he was safe from
the latter, but there was no consecutive belt of trees from our place
to those I have mentioned. That he arrived there, there was no doubt,
for I sometimes found him there myself, and he would come running
down the pine trees at my call. Neighbours told me of his fugitive
appearances in their gardens: “A large, red squirrel, very strong and
active.”
[Illustration]
Occasionally he stayed away from us altogether for a week or ten days.
Sometimes the food which was placed for him would not be touched, at
others it disappeared at midday, showing that he had slept away and
come over for it somewhere between eleven and twelve o’clock. When
a longer time than usual elapsed without a trace of him in wood or
garden, I was perfectly miserable, thinking that the dear, bright-eyed,
clever little thing had at last fallen a victim to boys or dogs. And
then the joy of his reappearance at my window, as intimate and cocky as
ever!
[Illustration]
I remember one morning in particular, a soft, sunny, spring-like day
in winter, I came into my room to find him, after an absence of more
than a fortnight, very hungry and very pleased with himself. He cocked
his tail on one side with a rakish air, and pranced over the carpet and
up the curtains, in the way he used to do when courting Bunty a year
ago, and showed, with all his little squirrel nature, his affection and
pleasure at our meeting again. I stuffed him with every dainty I had
till he could eat no more, and insisted on hiding the rest in the ivy
on the wall, where, as I knew, mice would steal it when night came.
* * * * *
Meantime Peter and Rufina lived in the big cage on the wall outside my
other window.
They never became friends. As I have said in my former book, by the
time the latter had been a fortnight in the cage she was completely
mistress of the situation. She appropriated Peter’s sleeping-box, she
stole all his best nuts, and should he dare to approach her while she
was eating, she routed him fiercely. He was thankful when the short
winter day was over, and he could sneak behind the curtains in my room
and snuggle into his blue serge sleeping-bag, remaining there till next
morning.
I must explain that Peter was a little English squirrel, whom I had
reared from babyhood. He was now about nine months old. Rufina was a
lady, German, bought from Devon and Co. at Bethnal Green. At this time
I had had her barely three months.
Squirrels hate a high wind. The noise in the trees makes it difficult,
I suppose, to hear enemies about. Also perhaps they fear to lose their
hold of the tossing branches. Be it as it may, I was always certain
that in a gale not a glimpse of a squirrel would be obtained all day.
Torrents of rain, too, will deter them from scampering about; their
tails get bedraggled and heavy and upset their balance. I have known
Fritz come in the rain, but it generally meant that the weather was
going to clear. I have seen him out in a wild snow squall. He spent a
quarter of an hour once on the roof of the garden squirrel-house trying
to scratch his way in through the heather thatch where a rival lived,
while the snow was falling so thickly I could scarcely see him.
[Illustration]
Young squirrels are very playful, and I think they amuse themselves
with toys.
I shall never forget my astonishment at one of Rufina’s achievements.
There had been an empty mouse-trap in my room for some weeks. It was
five or six inches long and two or three inches deep, made of wood,
with a wire top. It was not baited, and I had carefully unset it in
case Peter or Rufina playing about the room should put their noses
inside and get nipped by the spring. The father of a mouse family had
once been caught in it, and I had had some very miserable moments; but
that is another story. Ever since that tragic night his widow and
children had carefully avoided it. Still, it lay under a cupboard,
forgotten. One day I was surprised to see it on the floor of the
squirrel-house. I wondered if the housemaid had thrown it out, meaning
to take it away, and had forgotten it. The evening, however, was
closing in, and I left it alone, intending to remove it next day. Early
the following morning I was awakened by extraordinary sounds in the
cage, a bumping and a scrabbling quite unaccountable, punctuated every
now and then by the fall of something on the floor. When I got up to
look, I saw Rufina in the act of climbing up the wire netting _with the
trap in her mouth_.
[Illustration]
I watched her. She gave me a backward glance, as much as to say,
“Don’t _you_ interfere,” and recommenced her haulings and tuggings.
She dragged the thing some four feet up, and then along a wooden bar
till she got below the little platform outside the sleeping-box. Then
she made a spring, but lost her hold of the trap, and down it came
clattering to the floor. What could she want it for? It was no good
as a receptacle for storing nuts, as the spring door was closed, and
the wires were too closely set for it to be possible to push anything
through them. I came to the conclusion that she meant to place it
somewhere as a barrier to circumvent Peter.
[Illustration]
The whole of the morning was occupied by the persistent little creature
in efforts to get her plaything up to where she wanted it. It fell to
the floor quite a dozen times, but she tackled it again, every time
with unabated energy. I questioned the housemaid as to why she had
thrown it into the cage, and found that she had never touched it.
Rufina must therefore have dragged it from under the cupboard, across
the room, and by a great effort jumped with it in her mouth to the
level of the window-sill, about two and a half feet from the floor.
By the evening, however, it had disappeared, and I descried it at last
in the very topmost corner of her home. It was above the sleeping-box,
wedged into an old bicycle basket, which was nailed under the eaves.
This had some hay in it, and was used for hiding nuts. Did Rufina place
it there as a shield against Peter’s thefts?
After a day or two the trap fell down again, and I took it away, afraid
lest a little paw might be caught and wedged between the wires.
* * * * *
When Miss Appleton kindly undertook to illustrate my first book about
the squirrels, though she stayed with us several times in order to
sketch Fritz and Bunty from life, it was found necessary for her to
have a squirrel model in her friends’ studio in London, where she was
working at the time. A wire-netting place was therefore improvised on
the roof, outside the high studio window in Kensington, and in due time
came a package from Devon and Co. labelled “LIVE SQUIRREL.”
[Illustration]
The lady artists who owned the studio were delighted at the idea of
having this little pet, and, in Miss Appleton’s absence, proceeded at
once most incautiously to open the box. They prised one end open, and
were going to bring it to the door of the cage they had prepared, when
hey! presto! there was a flash, a scurry of fur upon hands and arms,
and away went the squirrel helter-skelter over pictures, statuary,
easels, chairs, and shelves. Crash! crash! bang went glass, smashing
to atoms, down fell pictures, over went models, and a wild and
exciting uproar followed. The artists shrieked, the squirrel sprang
here, there, and everywhere in a fifty by seventy feet room crammed
indiscriminately with painters’ and sculptors’ paraphernalia.
Inarticulate with laughter, the ladies sprang after it. Faster and
faster it flew, taking wild leaps from the top of one easel to
another; pattering swiftly over angels’ wings and Mercury’s helmet,
over Clytie’s bust and the horns of Mephistopheles; diving down to the
floor, scrambling up the walls, till dismay arose as the bewildered
creature jumped upon the stove and ran along the hot-water pipes.
[Illustration]
More than an hour was spent in this breathless chase, till some one
bethought her of a tiny room across the vestibule. Setting the door
open, the frightened little beast was at length chased into this, and
the door shut. A model’s cloak was flung over the runaway and twisted
round the struggling bundle, which was transferred to its future home.
The ladies of the studio were great admirers of Mr. Laurence Housman,
so the new arrival was named after him by common consent.
Laurence spent the following four and a half months (from the beginning
of November till the middle of March) in a cage about three feet by
two, which was fastened against a chimney-pot on the roof.
I have often wondered what his nights were like, with London cats all
round.
He was furnished with a sleeping-box, with a hinged lid. I once saw him
asleep, as my friend opened the top. Anything neater and warmer could
not well be imagined. Wood-wool was tightly wedged round the inside of
the box first, then came a thick layer of cotton-wool, all of which
he had arranged himself. In the middle, a curled red centre, lay the
squirrel fast asleep, his face completely hidden. The box lid fitted
tightly down over this compact mass, and the two little holes at either
end, through which he crept in and out, were so small, I wondered how
he could get any air at all.
* * * * *
When I went away for the Christmas week of 1913, I could not leave
Peter and Rufina the run of my bedroom. The house being shut up and
empty, with no one to see after them, they would have made hay of
all my possessions. So I hung the sleeping-bag on a nail on the wall
inside the cage, and shut and bolted the window, giving Smithers, the
gardener, instructions to feed them and replenish the water-jar from
outside; this he was accustomed to do by means of a ladder. He told me
that Rufina sometimes jumped out of the bag when he put his hand in to
scatter nuts; so poor Peter must have been forced to give up even this
pet hiding-place.
When I returned from Devonshire on 1st January, both squirrels were
invisible. As the weather was bitterly cold, I was a little anxious
when night came on lest their jar of water should be frozen; so I
opened the window, and, finding a solid block of ice, I took the vessel
in and replenished it. I mention this, as I fancy my action was the
cause of the tragedy which followed. The casement opened backwards upon
the inner wall of the cage, against which, upon a nail, hung the blue
cloth bag I have spoken of. The casement would just touch this bag and
shake it, though it was protected a little by a branch of the shrub
which grew up through the cage.
[Illustration]
I did not guess that Rufina was asleep in the bag; the night was pitch
dark. I saw nothing, and closing the window again, went to bed.
[Illustration: The snow was falling so thickly I could scarcely see
him. _See page 24._]
Next morning, hearing a tiny pattering about eight o’clock, I got
up to peep and see my little pets. What was my astonishment and
distress to see Rufina’s little form dangling, stiff and cold, from the
platform against the sleeping-box. Above, there glared down upon me the
horror-struck face of Peter, with eyes starting out of his head, and
ears frantically bristling. Only for a second, for, catching sight of
me, he bolted precipitately. I opened the window, jumped on the sill,
and stretching up as far as I could, felt Rufina’s little body. It was
quite stiff and quite cold. Her head was caught and jammed between
the platform and the sleeping-box; there was the space of a couple of
inches or so between the two. It seemed an inexplicable thing that a
squirrel should get its head into an interstice from which it could not
withdraw it, or that, having got its whole head in, it should not have
been able to draw its shoulders after it.
I think and hope that in her struggles she may have broken her neck
at once; she had no purchase below with which to help herself. The
accident could never have happened in the daylight. I was convinced,
upon reflection, that my opening the casement overnight had startled
her into jumping out of the serge bag, and that she had blindly made
for the hole in the sleeping-box some three feet above. She must have
missed the perch from which she always scrambled upon the platform, and
from thence to the nest.
This nesting-box and platform had been in the same relative positions
for a year and a half. No other squirrel had jammed its head in between
them; nor would Rufina have made the mistake had she not been in the
dark, and blind and stupid with sleep.
[Illustration]
These conclusions came to me afterwards. For the moment I extricated
the little body with difficulty from the death-trap, and tried for
nearly an hour to bring back life. So amazed and puzzled was I at
first that I could not believe she had hanged herself. I thought she
was merely frozen; for it had been a bitterly cold night, with ice
everywhere. I brought her to my fire, and strove by moving her little
arms backwards and forwards to bring breath back into the lungs. I
chafed her tiny close-shut claws; I held her by the fire, and rubbed
her beautiful little body. She was in such perfect condition, and so
exquisitely clean and sweet!
When all hope was abandoned, I laid her gently on the floor of the
cage to see what Peter would do, and whether he would show any sign of
grief. At sight of me at the window he fled, wildly jibbering, stamping
his feet, and screaming. Here was fresh lead on my heart. It was bad
enough to lose Rufina, but that Peter should look upon me as her
murderer was the sharpest cut of all!
[Illustration]
He was angry and horror-struck, but by no means grief-stricken,
however, for a few minutes later I heard him cracking nuts, busy over
his breakfast.
[Illustration]
To most of us when a tragedy like this happens, the feeling is “to have
no more pets.” But Rufina had never been what Bunty was. She had never
sat on my hand, or played with me, or come at my call, or nipped my
fingers to make me quicker. She had not won her way into my heart as
that first little Surrey squirrel had done. She had, it is true, just
begun to come into my room and eat fearlessly, and I had had great
hopes of winning her confidence as spring came on. But this hope was
now shattered.
It was dismal to have nothing to play with. Peter continued so angry
that he would not let me see him. Moreover, my plan of a mate of his
own nationality for Fritz was frustrated. I had resolved to let Rufina
loose with him in the wood when March arrived, and here was the blunt
and miserable end to all my hopes of little ones.
[Illustration]
A week or so afterwards, therefore, found me inquiring of Messrs. Devon
and Co. if haply they could find me another German female squirrel,
warranted young and healthy.
* * * * *
In a few days Ruby arrived. We had missed meeting her at the station,
and the little package came by the midday delivery van.
I expected Peter to be much annoyed by the advent of this new
trespasser in his domain. He had never for two minutes been on friendly
terms with Rufina. In fact, to judge from squirrel signs and tokens,
he hated her; but the same day that Ruby arrived, we found the two
amicably cracking nuts together.
[Illustration]
The newcomer was very red, as Rufina had been when she first came
in October. I was a little surprised at this, for it was now
winter--January 1914--and Rufina’s coat had long since taken on a
lovely pearly gray which, with the undergrowth of red and an autumn
tail, gave her quite a distinguished air.
Ruby was a dear little kittenish creature, very fond of play. She was
dreadfully afraid of me at first, and much too suspicious to venture
inside my room. The sight of me at the window sent her flying into the
safe shelter of the sleeping-box, and once there she would, like all
the others of her sex, swear at Peter, and dig her little claws into
his nose if he tried to get in too. After a week or so, however, he was
allowed to get in at the back entrance, and though there were always
some expostulations, he was not turned out.
She would come into the room when I was not there, and eat her fill of
nuts on the inverted lid of the clothes-basket. The weather was quite
mild just then, and she seemed to like her quarters better than any of
the former new arrivals had done.
[Illustration]
She had a dear little face, a lovely red coat, and a beautiful plumy
tail. She kept herself exquisitely clean, and spent a good deal of time
over her toilet. Naturally, it being the depth of winter, she spent a
great many hours asleep.
[Illustration]
It is evident that caged squirrels sleep a great deal more, especially
in winter, than when they are at large in the woods. Fritz was
constantly to be seen, at least twice a day for a couple of hours at
a time, bounding about the trees. And I used to notice the wild ones,
the year before, very active even in the snow. A biting east wind would
keep them snug in their nests, or a cold pitiless rain continuing all
day. Otherwise they were nearly as active in winter as in summer,
with this great difference, that whereas in summer 4 a.m. would find
them at my window, their morning toilet finished and their appetites
keen, in winter they did not appear at all till between eight and nine
o’clock, and by 3 p.m. they had curled themselves up for the night. In
the summer, I have heard them cracking nuts at 8 p.m. I think they all
sleep from about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., winter or summer.
[Illustration]
I often came upon Fritz having forty winks, on a comfortable branch
sheltered from the wind, in the daytime. Squirrels’ claws are so strong
and flexible, and cling so firmly, that there is no danger of their
falling from any perch, awake or asleep.
[Illustration]
It was very interesting and amusing to watch Ruby as she became more
and more used to seeing me about. I would open the casement into the
squirrel cage, and go back to bed and watch. This cage was built on
to the wall outside my window; it was five or six feet high, and
about three feet broad, with a good wooden floor, and what made it
delightfully home-like for squirrels was that an evergreen shrub grew
inside against the wall right up to the eaves. Ruby would clamber
down the central pole, which, with perches nailed upon it, made a
capital substitute for a tree trunk, and would come peeping round the
casement, to look for nuts which would be on a chair, or on the tall
clothes-basket near by. Her little pointed ears, with their pretty
tufts, would be sharply cocked, her whiskers quivering nervously, and
her tail erect but turned back at the tip in the form of a query. Then
as I made no sign of movement she would gain confidence, and venture
farther in. When she got a nut and sat up to eat it, breaking the shell
so cleverly in two halves, and keeping one half in her paws as a little
cup, while nibbling it her ears would come close together, and her
tail would curl comfortably right over her dainty little head. She was
a charming picture as she sat up, showing her snow-white waistcoat,
holding her food between her wee thumbs, her little jaws going like
lightning, her brilliant eyes keeping a sharp lookout towards my part
of the room--ready to vanish in a second should I dare to move.
[Illustration]
And then would come another nervous and anxious little face; this was
Peter, hoping that there would be something left for him. But Ruby
would scold and grumble; and he, silently withdrawing, would wait till
her ladyship had finished.
[Illustration]