The gamekeeper whose bag of vermin in a year included 140 squirrels is,
we may hope, exceptional. Squirrels are not always treated by keepers
as vermin. Now and again a squirrel has been proved guilty of meddling
with the eggs and young of pheasants--but so rarely that even keepers
speak of these misdeeds as "not worth mentioning." The traditional
crime of squirrels is that they damage various sorts of coniferous
trees by nipping their shoots when young. Even if they gave this work
all their time and attention, their numbers in the woods to-day are
so small that the whole damage done would not amount to a very great
injury to the country.
Squirrels are the most innocent creatures in the woods, so far as
any harm to game preserving goes. It is their misfortune that many
keepers look upon them as a convenient form of ferret-food. We have
found a freshly killed squirrel, apparently the victim of a bird of
prey, beneath a spruce fir, from which a barn owl flew as we examined
the body; no doubt owls would take a chance to attack a squirrel.
As to what squirrels kill there is little evidence. We have known a
squirrel to do away with part of a brood of tits in an apple-tree, and
one which visited a pheasant's nest, carrying away an egg, and once
we saw a young pheasant in a squirrel's mouth; but we have no doubt
that the bird was picked up dead. The squirrel's alarm-cry reminds us
of the sound produced from the hole in the body of a rubber doll; it
is amusing to see how he stamps his fore-feet while uttering this cry,
as if doing his best to frighten away his human intruder by a show of
force and fury.
Squirrels always seem to be among the happiest of wild animals. They
have few foes, and none to equal their agility and speed in the tree
branches. The stoat is a good climber, and if he were to attack the
squirrel's nest there would be small chance for the young ones; but
stoats rarely climb so high. In the bitterest weather the squirrel is
secure in his drey; he dreams away the hard days, while around him
birds and animals die of cold and hunger. His only trouble seems to be
that hazel-nuts are sometimes blighted.
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