* * * * *
[Illustration]
FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS.
It will be remembered that I had obtained another squirrel as a mate
for Laurence when he should leave London and come to Hook Heath and
freedom. This little creature had arrived on the thirteenth of January;
had been kept in the conservatory while the bitter weather lasted; and
had been put into the garden squirrel-house on the twenty-eighth of
the month. I called her Sulky at first, for she remained so implacably
invisible; and, though food disappeared, I never caught a glimpse of
her for a fortnight. She was, as I have said, intended to be a mate for
Laurence; but after Ruby’s death I felt she must be given to Fritz,
and I must get another little lady for Laurence. So, the day after my
little pets died, I opened the door of the squirrel-house, and let the
captive free to go where she would.
[Illustration]
I had reason to believe, however, that for a week she sneaked back to
the squirrel-house every night to sleep; for nuts put in overnight were
gone before 7 a.m., and one morning I saw her slipping down from the
sleeping-box to make her breakfast.
I watched her afterwards get out and run along the fence, and then
think better of it, and come back and climb up to have another nap.
By midday, however, she was gone, nor did I see her again for more than
a fortnight. We had some very stormy weather, with high gales and snow
squalls, and I began to fear that she had got a chill and would die of
pneumonia, like poor little Rufina.
How should we ever know? She would creep into one of the deserted nests
in the wood, and there gasp out her little life as the two others had
done.
The only thing that gave me hope that she was alive and well, though
unseen, was Fritz’s cheerful behaviour, and the fact of his still
remaining in the wood and garden. For it was springtime, and surely, if
there had not been some attraction here, he would have been off to the
plantations across the heath, where there were plenty of little ladies
to be courted. His demeanour when he paid visits to my room--which he
did every day--was suggestive of happiness and of amorous thoughts.
He would cock his tail roguishly, and skip about and run up the
curtains--plainly “showing off.”
[Illustration]
I therefore hoped that, though I could not see her, he was aware of
Sulky’s presence, and was hugging to himself hopes of domestic bliss.
And, sure enough, one bright morning I peeped out at 6 a.m., to see
Fritz tearing across the lawn, as fast as his little legs could carry
him, towards the stump, where Sulky was boldly cracking nuts, looking
exceedingly well and pretty. I saw her lift the cocoanut shell with her
little fore paws from off the cob nuts, and she tucked in an excellent
breakfast. Fritz, being the gentleman he always was, would not disturb
her, but came up the ivy to me, where his antics betokened great
happiness.
From that day the name of Sulky was dropped, and became “Mrs. Fritz.”
* * * * *
By the 17th March Miss Appleton required Laurence Housman no longer as
a model, so she brought him down to me at Hook Heath.
[Illustration]
She had secured his sleeping-box (while he was curled up in it for a
nap), wrapped it in thick brown paper, wired it across the holes, and
held it in her lap all the time in tubes and train.
“I suppose he is here, and I suppose he is alive,” she said when she
arrived; “but I have not heard the ghost of a sound, nor felt the
faintest wriggle in the box. I hope he has not died of fright!”
We put the package down for a moment upon the sofa, when, to our
amusement and relief, there immediately came forth squeaks and grunts
of expostulation.
“Poor little fellow! how cramped he must be,” we exclaimed; and
proceeded forthwith to place him, box and all, within the spacious
squirrel-house in the garden. This was safely accomplished by Smithers,
good man--as kind and interested in my pets as ever.
[Illustration]
In this abode Laurence remained till the 2nd May, when I set him free
altogether. But before giving him his liberty I had to get a mate for
him, so that there should be no excuse for fights with the masterful
Fritz. As Messrs. Devon and Co. took some time before they found what I
wanted (for she had to be a German, young, and healthy), Laurence had
to remain solitary for a month.
March 1914 was a dreadful month of gales, rain, and snow squalls; but
with the first days of April came spring-like warmth and brilliant
sunshine, and the wild squirrels visited the garden again.
One morning the dear little thing, whom I used to call Miss Fritz in
the summer of 1913, came dancing and skipping along the fence rails,
and I watched her at 6 a.m. from my bedroom window. She climbed the
big lime tree to have a look at the little shelf outside my casement,
where, as she well remembered, nuts were spread galore in the days of
her childhood last year. Yes! there they were, and down she ran and
made a dash for the wall and the sheltering ivy. Up she scrambled,
and in another moment was perched on the extreme corner of the ledge,
with her beautiful tail cocked over her back, and an almond clutched
in her little claws. She let me stand quite close, not a foot away,
with the window wide open; and oh! how pretty and small and dainty she
looked to my eyes, accustomed for so many months to the coarser build
and shaggier fur of the Germans. Her little face was so appealing and
baby-like, her nut-coloured fur so soft, and her tail so fluffy!
[Illustration]
She knew me again quite well; looked at me with recognition in her
brilliant black eyes; and presently, dropping the empty shell of her
almond, she came hesitatingly to the inside ledge of the window,
stretching out her nose to sniff at me--to make quite sure that I was
in very truth her old friend; and, having satisfied her little mind,
she picked up a walnut and concentrated her attention upon it. I
stood beside her there for ten minutes, till she had finished all the
provender except one cob nut, which she carefully hid in the ivy. Then
she raced down to coquette with poor Laurence, who in his garden-cage
was doing his wild best to excite her attention. Round and round the
wire she darted, sniffing nose to nose with him and “twizzling” her
plumy tail. Every now and then I heard squeaks and exclamations. Then
they started a sort of hide-and-seek, she outside, he inside. I felt
very sorry for him, and longed to let him out; but his peace, let alone
his life, would not have been worth a moment’s purchase with Fritz in
the wood.
Two days before this, Laurence had got out. The little door of his
house, though shut, had not been bolted, and with a sudden burst of
summer-like sunshine and high wind the rain-swollen wood had shrunk,
and was easily burst open when pressed by his eager paws. I did not see
him go. He must have skipped off very early indeed; but about 10 a.m. I
happened to be looking out of the window, and was suddenly aware of two
hurrying furry forms across the ground. Poor Laurence was tearing for
all he was worth towards the shelter of his lately forsaken house, and
Fritz was after him, with murder in his eyes.
[Illustration]
I clapped my hands and shouted, startling them both and diverting
Fritz’s attention. He sprang up a tree, and Laurence hid himself in
the twinkling of an eye. I saw Master Fritz watching intently for a
few moments, and wrathfully “twisting his tail” (as a young friend of
mine puts it). His rival remaining invisible, however, I soon saw him
skipping leisurely back along his tree footpath to Mrs. Fritz in the
wood.
Half an hour later I perceived Laurence stealthily making his way along
the fence towards his house, where nuts were plentifully spread. (I
suspect he had not had much of a breakfast.) I fled downstairs and
out in time to see his tail drawn neatly through the open door, as he
seized a cob nut and sat up to enjoy it. He scarcely noticed me as I
bolted him in--only too thankful, I fancy, to find himself once more
where were plenty of nuts and no Fritz.
* * * * *
Towards the end of March--to be accurate, on the 22nd--I see in a
note in my squirrel diary that Laurence wakened and was busy over his
breakfast at 6 a.m., and that Fritz came along, and, perching on the
heather thatch of his house, swore fiercely at him, twisting his tail
with rage. He heeded not my call, nor the rattle of nuts on my window
sill; but burrowed his nose into the heather, in vain attempts to come
to close quarters with his enemy. Laurence swished his tail too, and
returned his compliments with interest; but, finding it impossible
to fight, he presently turned his back on Fritz and resumed his nut
cracking--with a lofty contempt for the other--and Fritz had to come up
to me to be fed and consoled.
[Illustration]
At last Laurence’s bride arrived, and as had happened before with the
various pairs under observation, she soon took the best of everything.
Laurence was turned out of his sleeping-box; she stole all his best
nuts; and invariably made him wait till she had finished her meals,
leaving only the refuse for him.
She arrived on the seventeenth of April, and I opened the cage door
to set them both free after she had had a fortnight to get used
to the sight of the house and the human beings in the garden, and
to understand that food and water were always to be found in that
particular place.
I also made a little hole in the thatched roof--as squirrels like to
have two entrances to their abodes--and Laurence immediately set out to
enjoy his liberty. I soon saw his little head emerging from the hole
at the top, and I watched his furtive joy as he capered about among
the foxgloves and periwinkles below, and finally was lost to my sight
clambering up a cherry tree. Mrs. Laurence, on the contrary, was quite
a week before she quitted the cage. She preferred to remain where food
was abundant, and where her comfortable sleeping-box kept her snug at
night.
When at length she did venture forth with her husband into the unknown,
she still stole back for several nights to her safe shelter. But at
last, I suppose, they built between them a nest in the wood, for I
constantly saw Laurence very busily tearing strips of fibre from the
trees just then, and the cage was finally deserted.
* * * * *
Squirrels are very busy in the spring stripping bark for making new
nests, and in the summer this is sometimes carried on for remaking and
mending the old.
They generally choose damp rainy days for doing this, when the material
they gather is full of moisture. Once, however, in a spell of prolonged
hot dry weather, I was much struck with a clever device on the part of
one of them, probably Fritz.
I found one morning two little bundles of stripped fibre thrust into
the jar of drinking water inside the garden squirrel-house. (The
entrance to this was always left open, and the squirrels ran in and
out for food and water.)
There was no mistaking these neat little bundles. I had too often
watched Bunty, Fritz, Rufina, and Co. not to know the look of them,
with the ends tucked in, in the form of a little bolster. I left the
packages there, grasping at once that the weather being so dry the
fibre had become too stiff and hard to be easily woven, hence the
bringing of these bundles to the water and leaving them to soak. They
remained there for two or three days, then one was carried off, and a
day or two later the second disappeared.
[Illustration: She coquetted with the birds round the drinking pan.
_See page 83._]
[Illustration]
What made the performance more interesting was that this special fibre
was only obtained from one particular tree, a certain conifer which
grew on the other side of the garden. Fritz had been frequently seen in
the spring stripping the fibre from this half-dead tree, the only one
of its kind we had. In carrying his little bundles from it to where
he placed them to soak, he would pass two birds’ drinking pans full
of water; but they were in public places on the lawn, and constantly
bathed in by all sorts of birds. Fritz--if it was he, and I very much
suspect it was--preferred the comparative secrecy and seclusion of the
small water-jar in the squirrel-house in the back garden. His sagacity
was justified, for no one meddled with them till he considered them to
be sufficiently moistened for weaving purposes.
* * * * *
One hot afternoon under the weeping tree there was coolness and shade.
Half drowsily I was reading the Saturday _Westminster_, when I was
aware--I can’t say I heard it, for it was so slight--but I was aware
of a minute noise. It was not the fitful summer breeze swaying the
hanging branches of my sanctuary, nor the scratches of birds under
the rhododendrons in a vain quest for worms. I lifted my head very
cautiously, and twisted it slowly towards the rough stem of the
white-blossomed acacia, twenty feet away. Yes, up in a fork of the
branches was a bit of brown fur. Part of it seemed to be quivering
incessantly. The tiny noise I heard was the dropping of a nutshell on
the grass. The quivering I saw was a little jaw nibbling very fast.
Presently there was a flashing movement, and out into the sunshine
she came, a beautiful, brilliant foxy red, with a tail which put her
husband’s to shame, for this was Mrs. Fritz.
[Illustration]
With electric jerky motions she came down the tree stem and clawed
out another nut from the crevices, and swung head downward easily and
securely, her hind feet firmly clenching the deeply-grooved bark. Nut
after nut she searched out from where I had hidden them, and then,
catching sight of me, she swiftly and noiselessly put herself out of
sight.
Presently, as I remained very still, she plucked up more courage and
skipped down to the grass. Here for some minutes she coquetted--there
is no other word for it--she coquetted with the birds round the
drinking pan. After many feints, advancing and retreating, she buried
her nose in the cool, sparkling water, and took a long, long drink.
Eyeing me through the veil of green which dropped round me, she
suddenly made up her frisky mind to dare all and come to the nut tray
close to my seat.
She rushed towards me in a tremendous hurry as if afraid of changing
her mind again, her tail straight out behind her, and in two seconds
was within touching distance of my hand. I kept rigid, and watched out
of half-closed eyes. She stood up on her flexible hind feet and reached
out a quivering, sniffling little nose in my direction, trembling all
over with fear and curiosity. But as the dreaded human smell reached
her moist nostrils, she turned and darted like an arrow under the
shelter of a thick rhododendron. Here she hid, and I saw her bright
eyes peeping out at me behind the leaves. I still remained motionless,
and presently was aware of a noiseless furry form vanishing up the
holly tree which leans against some of the outer branches of the beech.
The long hanging green around me shook a moment, and by that I knew
that she had jumped from the holly to the beech, and was somewhere
above my head. I moved imperceptibly so as to look upwards, and close
above me was a little white stomach with a fiery tail cocked over a
chestnut back.
And now she began to scold and stamp her feet and lash her tail; but
seeing that I kept calm and moved not an eyelash, she made for the
nuts, and sat up within a yard of my chair cracking and devouring them
one by one.
I was immensely pleased, as this was the first time since I let her go
three months ago that I had seen Mrs. Fritz so near.
* * * * *
There came a day at the end of June when Fritz brought a son and heir
to the nuts on the stump. The stump, I must explain, was near the
squirrel-house in the back garden, and was in full view of my window.
The youngster was a lovely colour, almost orange, with a smart bushy
tail. Fritz at this time was changing his tail, and was a lamentable
object in that respect--his spiny little appendix had hardly a hair on
it. I was amused at his elderly paterfamilias ways--“twizzling” his
bald tail in mock anger, and carefully hiding away several nuts for
future occasions. And this reminds me that I never saw him bury his
nuts as the Surrey squirrels did. He preferred to hide them in the
forks of the trees, or in the ivy, or in deserted birds’ nests.
[Illustration]
I have forgotten to say that when Laurence’s mate arrived in the
middle of April it was Smithers who received her, and put her into the
squirrel-house in the garden, for I was spending Easter amid the deep
green lanes of Devonshire.
There, one hot spring morning, as I was lying on moss and whortleberry,
under the shoulder of Mutter’s Moor, I watched a wild squirrel running
up a larch. It was soon hidden from view in the tree’s delicate green
branches--and what is more exquisite than the earliest green of the
larch? I heard the delicious scrabble of little claws on the bark,
while about me droned the big bumble-bees and their quick-working
cousins of the hive, all intent on honey-getting. I was puzzled to know
where the honey was to be found, till I saw that the whortleberry was
full of innumerable tiny crimson bell-flowers.
[Illustration]
It was a wonderful Easter. After “the wettest March on record” April
came in hot and brilliant, with a steady east wind that dried up the
saturated ground.
[Illustration]
In every sheltered valley and “goyle” the trees rushed into leaf. The
birch shook out her fairy tassels, and larches lit up the hillsides
with their vivid green lace. Everywhere the busy birds flew in and out
of the hedges, intent on nest-making. The rooks cawed from morning to
night, the jackdaws “chucked,” and sea-gulls sailed aloft exchanging
their wild free calls in the blue. It was a joy to live.
* * * * *
Back in Surrey again after a cold spell--“the tail of winter in the
middle of May”--the icy wind dropped, and a still, hot day soothed our
ruffled nerves, and warmed our shivering bodies once more. Early one
morning wild Miss Tito paid me a second visit. She came to the bedroom
window, and allowed me to stand close beside her, while she cracked her
favourite Barcelona nuts.
When her back was turned, and her eyes shielded by her lovely tail, I
gently unfastened the casement and very slowly pushed it out, holding
my breath and body very still, when she quickly jerked round to see
what was happening. I then backed quietly into the shadow of the room,
having placed more nuts on a chair. Presently, her nut finished, and no
more to be found under the inverted cocoanut in spite of her vigorous
nose-pushings, her wee intelligent face peeped inside the casement, two
little fore paws appeared, and then she jumped upon the chair to seize
a nut--skipping outside again to crack it. I crept back into bed, and
lay still. Then she came again, jumped down upon the blue carpet, and
executed a sort of _pas seul_--pitter-patter--and back. She had not
been inside my room since last September--eight months ago!
Through the autumn and winter I had scarcely seen her, even in the
garden. With Tito and Tara I suppose she had been driven away by
the masterful Fritz. As mentioned already, in April she had once
reappeared, and had even clambered up the ivy to breakfast at the
old place. But this running about in my room to-day showed that she
had not forgotten the spring of 1913, when she was such a fearless
little visitor that I once caught her, and put her for ten days in the
squirrel-house, in a vain attempt to tame her altogether--an attempt
which, as I have explained in a former book, completely failed.
To return, however, to this particular morning, she came in and out
several times till the nuts were finished, and then took a bit of brown
bread in her mouth, and hid it in the curtains before she finally
departed. Afterwards I saw her in the lime tree licking her little
paws, and cleaning her whiskers assiduously.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
“There’s a boy downstairs with some baby squirrels in his pocket, and
he says will you buy one, and he has sold the others already, and will
you tell him how to feed them?”
This from an excited child who came bounding to my door, the morning
holidays began, and we were all going away from home.
I went downstairs and found a bright-eyed, sturdy little chap of nine,
who held in his hand a tiny bit of fur, with a fuzzy turned-up tail,
and a pair of sharp tufted ears. Putting it on the kitchen table--where
it darted about in electric fashion, saved from falling off the edge
every minute by eager hands--the boy pulled another, and another, and
yet another out of his pockets, and then diving into a basket on the
floor, he produced three more. Seven furry infants! I gasped. The
heartlessness of it! What were the bereaved and distracted parents
doing?
I questioned him wrathfully, as I dashed round the table, with others,
to prevent imminent catastrophes. The electric movements spread all
over the broad surface of the kitchen table.
[Illustration]
“Where did you get them?”
“Out in the fir plantations on the heath, Miss. Oi cloimed up a tree
and put me ’and in the nestises. Oi let one fall, and ’e doid.”
Some one brought warmed milk in a soup plate, and we placed the seven
wee things round it, dipping their noses in, as one does with kittens,
to make them lap. Three tackled the food at once; tiny pink tongues
shot out, tiny tails curled comfortably over backs. The others were
too feeble, and too young to understand; they were palpitating, and
fell over as fast as they were put upon their four legs. Poor little
innocents, taken away far too young from their mothers and their dark,
warm nests! I saw they would not live; already two were in convulsions.
I was furious with the boy. But what was to be done? He had already
sold most of them for a shilling apiece, on condition he reared
them for the first week himself. He had heard that I knew all about
squirrels, and came to me for instructions about food.
[Illustration]
I warned him as emphatically as I knew how against overfeeding, and
pointed out the absolute necessity of plenty of sleep, warmth, and
_no_ handling. But what was the use? He had seven little brothers
and sisters at home. They all wanted to cuddle the squirrels; they
all wanted to feed them. Two died that evening, three followed their
example next day, and by the day after not one was left alive.
It was impossible for me to have taken them myself. I was going a
long journey to friends--whom I love, but whose prime aversion is
pet animals! Our house was being shut up, and Smithers, with all his
kindness and patience, firmly declined a responsibility in my absence
that entailed getting up at 4 a.m. to give food, and that in any case
was by no means an easy task. Baby squirrels are notoriously difficult
to rear.
* * * * *
Later in the month found me once more established with books and work
in my old summer quarters under the weeping beech on the lawn.
The beech had been, as usual, the last to come out; while larches,
limes, and chestnuts had flung open their treasures and burst into
spring loveliness almost before the middle of that wonderful April,
the beech, still shrinking and coy, had kept her little brown sheaths
wrapped tightly round her buds. But by the second week in May, after
“Winter’s tail” had fled, she hung out all her delicate green; and
her swaying tresses swept the turf around me, as I sat alone in the
sweetness and promise of yet another spring.
[Illustration]
Sparrows, thrushes, and robins were busy feeding young broods;
chaffinches and blue tits were still sitting on their eggs; the spotted
flycatchers had not yet arrived. Forget-me-nots, violas, and irises
made a sea of blue and purple, seen through the pendent branches of my
sanctuary. White broom leant over with its fairy flowerets, and back
amongst the evergreens glowed the crimson of early rhododendrons.
Presently there was a scolding and chattering above my head, and I
looked up to see Fritz, who had, I suppose, come by his usual overland
route along the tree tops, and was minded to come down to the tray at
my elbow for nuts. He did not like the look of my rug and cushions,
and was apparently trying to stamp at and scold them out of his way.
Finding them immovable and harmless, however, he came leaping down for
almonds and walnuts, and as I talked to him his nervousness ceased, and
we were both happy.
After he had gone came the conscientious robin, who just now was hard
at it feeding her newly-fledged young. I helped her, at intervals,
all day in the performance of this duty, with currants, oatmeal, and
cheese. Scarcely did she allow herself a morsel, so intent was she
upon the needs of her brood. As she waited expectantly for my dole
another robin flew down. They did not fight, so I presumed this was
a cock, and I watched his antics to attract her with considerable
amusement.
[Illustration]
First, he sang to her, a little low whispering song, swaying his head
and neck to and fro, in an extraordinary manner bowing and sidling.
As, perfectly unconcerned, she continued assiduously picking up
invisible insects for her children, he changed his tactics, and, flying
to a branch above, he cocked up his tail, and trilled a loud jubilant
strain. Nothing moved by this exhibition, she simply ignored him, and
he flew away in disgust.
[Illustration: Seven furry infants!... The heartlessness of it! _See
page 90._]
I named him Robin Adair, because the garden was so dull when he was not
there, and he became eventually the most persistent little visitor. He
caused me to waste no end of time, for just as I had settled down
in the garden with writing or work, there he would be in an instant,
silently arriving out of nowhere.
Perched upon the open lid of my dispatch case, he would eye me with a
determined expression there was no mistaking. It said plainly, “Where
are my worms? Here I sit till you produce them. Be quick, please; my
family is waiting.” And I would have to get up, and go inside and bring
out the tin which contained his meal-worms. This I would place on my
knee, and take up my pen again, meaning really to write. But his dainty
little flutterings, his wee spindly legs, his beautiful plumage, and
his dew-bright eye were invariably too fascinating and too distracting.
I would leave off my writing a hundred times, to admire him and talk
to him. He was a most devoted father. He plied to and from the nest
where his little ones were all day long, and when one remembers that
a bird’s day at this time of year begins at 4 a.m., and lasts till 5
or 6 p.m., it will be admitted that this involves a tremendous amount
of energy. Very occasionally did Robin Adair give himself the treat
of swallowing one of the meal-worms which he was given. Sometimes
the delicious taste of the worm quite demoralized him, and he would
gulp down three or even four in succession. But to do him justice,
this happened but rarely. I found out where his nest was, and once I
commissioned some one else to dole out the worms, while I went behind
the shrubbery to watch the little hole, almost indistinguishable, on
the ground beneath the furze bushes in the field. He arrived with a fat
worm in his beak; but the expression in his black eyes the moment he
saw me so near his home was extremely angry. In a second he flew off
and hid. I waited and waited. Then _I_ hid, and peered through the
furze; but though he had hopped upon a twig nearer the nest, he spotted
me again instantly, and nothing would induce him to go in. He must have
warned his children, too, somehow, for though at other times I had seen
four little gaping mouths, all was silence and darkness now.
[Illustration]
His cleverness in carrying several worms at once was remarkable, as
each had to be killed before it was given to his babies. This entailed
a good deal of manipulation with his beak, biting and striking the
ground. I have constantly seen him doing this, and finally carrying
four worms in a row, to save the trouble of four journeys.
He became absolutely fearless while the very dry weather of June
lasted, as all ordinary worms refused to come to the surface of the
earth; and he would have got none at all but for my tin box. Not only
would he perch on my shoe, or on the box in my lap, but I trained
him to peck them out of my hand. Currants dipped in oatmeal, cheese,
and gingerbread made pleasant changes of diet, and helped to save the
worms, or he would have carried off hundreds in the course of the day.
[Illustration]
He was always with me, appearing, as I have said, suddenly and swiftly
out of nowhere; in whatever part of the garden I placed my chair, there
close to me in half a second would be the dapper little creature, trim,
neat, and alert. He was never dishevelled like the sparrows, and when
in the late afternoon it would seem as if he must be exhausted, he
would go and take an energetic bath, and come and sit beside me to dry
his feathers.
* * * * *
Sometimes for days together the garden was forsaken by the squirrels;
but to make up for their absence, many little episodes of bird life
amused me as I sat out of doors in the sun and the wind.
[Illustration]
The tits were shameless thieves, and their ingenuity was surprising.
I have watched one of these tiny birds manipulating--if one can use
such a word in connection with a beak--a cocoanut shell, which had been
turned over upon some nuts on purpose to keep them from him. Cob nuts
or walnuts he could not tackle, but almonds were not safe from him, and
monkey nuts he was determined to have. I saw him mount the cocoanut
shell, and with his head on one side peer into the hole at the top.
Satisfied that the coveted food was beneath it, he began to try to lift
the heavy shell. With his little beak he pecked and pulled manfully at
the outside fibre. He could just raise the shell, but not high enough
to get what he wanted.
After a good deal of exertion, which only shuffled it about on the
stump, he flew off for a minute’s rest and reflection. Then he tackled
it again, leaning down and pushing his beak sideways under the edge,
pecking valiantly, and every now and then mounting the nut to peer
through the hole to make sure that what he wanted was still there.
[Illustration]
The stump on which the shell was placed had a sloping surface, and to
prevent the squirrels’ food from rolling off, a ledge had been put on
two sides and across the bottom. Presently I was amazed to see that the
small bird had succeeded in wriggling and shuffling the cocoanut till
he had tilted it up upon this ledge. Out rolled the monkey nut from
beneath, and he flew away with it in triumph. I then heard a vigorous
knocking going on, a little way off, and saw him in a shrub banging the
nut against the trunk to break the pod. Having made an opening, he held
it firmly on a branch with one little claw, and feasted royally. This
exploit, from the time he first tackled the cocoanut till he got the
monkey nut out, took him just a quarter of an hour.
* * * * *
It was during this summer of 1914 that I saw, for the first time in my
life, a young cuckoo in a nest.
[Illustration]
Parting the furze bushes one day I came upon a linnet’s nest,
moss-built and tiny. There seemed to be a weird sort of an eye looking
over the top of it, and I touched the rim. To my amazement half a
foot of ruffled black and white shot up like a Jack-in-the-box, and
an orange-coloured maw and throat opened wide and hissed angrily.
It was quite formidable, and looked enormous compared with its wee
foster-parents, but I have no doubt they were immensely proud of it. We
had a tennis tournament that day, and I think about fifty young people
must have visited the furze bush. The excitement could not have been
very good for the poor creature. For the next two days he remained dull
and sleepy, and entirely declined to shoot himself up, or even to open
his lovely orange mouth. The third day found him flown. The little
mossy cup was empty-and time too, I should say; with such a swelling
bulk, I wonder the walls had not burst.
I think we may disabuse our minds of the traditional belief in the
wickedness of the cuckoo _mère_, and of the supposed grief and distress
of the youngster’s foster-parents. It seems to me much more likely
that, instead of considering it a misfortune to find a cuckoo’s egg in
their nests, our British birds only hope for such luck, and swell with
pride as they rear a magnificent chick, under the delusion that it is
their own.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
One very hot morning in June I was the interested spectator of a
mother tit showing her offspring how to bathe. The family party were
unaware of my presence. There were five young hopefuls--all sons, I
should imagine, for they were bigger than their active little mother.
All had been born and reared in a “Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary”
nesting-box, on a holly tree close by. The mother’s darker, more
pronounced colouring, longer tail, and determined expression of
countenance betrayed her matronhood. The children were delicious balls
of pale green and gray, with tiny black markings, and their innocent
and timid little faces were fascinating as they clustered round the
large earthenware saucer, full of water, in which the mother was
splashing.
[Illustration]
Her energy was astounding. She flapped and ducked and soused herself
till she had not a dry feather, then flew out and told them to go in.
Not a bit of it! The little cowards hopped upon the saucer’s edge,
stooped till their beaks touched the water, then turned right about
face, and looked gravely at their claws. They flew or hopped across
the saucer many times, but had not courage to plunge in. Back flew the
mother, hustled them away, and launched herself once more. They watched
her, and then began to imitate her movements--in the grass! The lawn
just there was thickly covered with fallen blossoms from a white
acacia, as also was the water in the saucer. The babies ducked and
quivered their wings, and bent up and down, and quirked imaginary drops
of water over their little backs. Out flew the mother, and perched on
a foxglove stalk, and into the water went a siskin, and thoroughly
enjoyed himself--but not for long; back came the mother tit, routed
him, and called to her little ones not to be outdone by a siskin. She
ducked and splashed, and twinkled and sprinkled all over again, till
she was a drenched little object; but beyond crouching near her, so as
to catch some of her splashings on themselves, not one of her children
had nerve enough to take a bath that morning. The last that I saw of
them, they were all five crouching and busily imitating her movements
amongst the grass and acacia blossoms; their shrill little voices,
could I have understood them, were probably calling out:
“We are trying, mother! we are indeed! Look at us! We’re doing just
what you do!”
* * * * *
On the tenth of June, to my joy, my pretty turtle-doves appeared again.
I called them my Bible doves--
_“As the wings of a dove covered with silver,
And her pinions with yellow gold.”_
For there is a silvery sheen about them, and a glint of gold in their
plumage.
This was the third summer that they had come to the garden and nested
in the wood. Such delicate lovely creatures! They came to drink, and to
pick up the small corn which I scattered for them every day on the lawn.
The lovely fawn colour of their breasts, melting into lavender on their
heads, the blue and black bars on their necks, their ruby eyes, and
dainty rose-coloured feet were a joy to behold--a feast of exquisite
colouring.
[Illustration]
They were very shy, and, on their first arrival, the sight or sound of
a human being made them instantly take fright; but as time went on they
became accustomed to me, and would, as long as I kept still, approach
quite close to my chair.
Though I searched the wood many times I never could find their nest. It
was well hidden.
* * * * *
And now autumn is approaching, with its splendour of amber and gold, of
crimson and brown. There is great activity in the squirrel world. Young
and old are busy storing and burying nuts.
Early in the dewy mornings they hie themselves to the hazel coppices,
to the lordly beeches, and later they will strip the walnuts. Active
little creatures, intent upon this their supreme instinct, I have known
a pair entirely clear away the beech-mast under the weeping tree on our
lawn on a September morning before breakfast--beech-mast which thickly
covered the ground the night before.
Fritz and Laurence Housman, too, are now disporting the full glory
of their autumn tails. Mrs. Fritz and Mrs. Laurence are teaching the
little Fritzes and the little Laurences where and how to hide the
winter food. Soon they will be stripping the fibre from the old conifer
in the shrubbery, and mending up their snug little homes in the wood,
ready for the short days and the long cold nights.
Good-bye, gay and care-free little friends! Good-bye! My way lies
south, by the sea, where no squirrels come.
FINIS.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Based on research, this book was most likely published in 1915, but
possibly in 1916.
The illustrator for this book was Honor C. Appleton.
Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are
mentioned.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication.
End of Project Gutenberg's More About the Squirrels, by Eleanor Tyrrell