The little Squirrel hath no other food
Than that which Nature’s thrifty hand provides;
And in purveying up and down the wood,
She many cold wet storms for that abides.
She lies not heartless in her mossy dray,—
Nor feareth to adventure through the rain;
But skippeth out, and bears it as she may,
Until the season waxeth calm again.”
Wither’s Emblems.
The Squirrel’s nest, or drey, is not made in the same situation as its hoard, but among the branches. Mr. Jesse, in his charming ‘ Gleanings,” says that it appears to give the preference to the fir. ‘‘In forming the nest they begin by gathering mouthfuls of dry benty grass, in the way we see rabbits do, and of this grass they make a considerable deposit. ‘The outside is afterwards protected with a quantity of sticks, giving the nest the appearance of a bird’s-nest."
The readiness with which the Squirrel extracts the kernel from a nut is well known, and Mr. Bell has recorded the interesting circumstance that it carefully removes every particle of the brown skin before it begins to eat the kernel. That accurate observer, White of Selbourne, notices the various modes which different animals employ to effect the same object, and adduces this as an instance. ‘ The Squirrel, the Field-mouse, and the bird called a Nut-hatch, live much on nuts, which they open each in a very different manner. The first splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife; the second drills a small round regular hole in the side of the nut; while the last picks an irregular hole with its bill."
The fur of the Squirrel, which is red in summer,
