Squirrels
Source:
What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games And Pastimes
Category:
IN THE COUNTRY
The time to see squirrels is September and October, when the beech
nuts and hazel nuts are ripe. In the pictures he sits up, with his
tail resting on his back, holding nuts in his little forepaws; but one
does not often see him like this in real life. He is either scampering
over the ground with his tail spread out behind him or chattering
among the branches and scrambling from one to another. The squirrel is
not seen at his best when he goes nutting. His beautiful swift
movements are checked by the thickness of the hazels. In a beech
grove he has more liberty to run and leap. Sometimes you will see
twenty at once all nibbling the beech nuts on the ground. On hearing
you they make for a tree trunk, and, rushing up it for a yard or two,
stop suddenly, absolutely still, with fearful eyes, and ears intently
and intensely cocked. If you stand equally still the squirrel will
stay there, motionless, like a piece of the tree, for a minute or so,
and then, in a very bad temper, disappear from view on the other side
of the trunk, and probably, though you run round the tree quickly
several times and search every branch with your eyes, never come into
sight again. It is a good thing to sit under a tree some distance from
the beech trees, making as little movement as possible; and by and by
you will cease to be considered as anything but a regular part of the
landscape and the squirrels may come quite close to you.
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A Country Diary
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Swallows And Hawks
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