In the Catskills | Page 7

first disturbed, he beats the ground
violently with his feet, by which means he would express to you his
surprise or displeasure; it is a dumb way he has of scolding. After
leaping a few yards, he pauses an instant, as if to determine the degree
of danger, and then hurries away with a much lighter tread.
His feet are like great pads, and his track has little of the sharp,
articulated expression of Reynard's, or of animals that climb or dig. Yet
it is very pretty like all the rest, and tells its own tale. There is nothing
bold or vicious or vulpine in it, and his timid, harmless character is
published at every leap. He abounds in dense woods, preferring
localities filled with a small undergrowth of beech and birch, upon the
bark of which he feeds. Nature is rather partial to him, and matches his

extreme local habits and character with a suit that corresponds with his
surroundings,--reddish gray in summer and white in winter.
The sharp-rayed track of the partridge adds another figure to this
fantastic embroidery upon the winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong
line, sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, steering for
the densest, most impenetrable places,--leading you over logs and
through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few
yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,--the complete
triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks
never be fewer, or your visits to the birch-tree less frequent!
The squirrel tracks--sharp, nervous, and wiry--have their histories also.
But how rarely we see squirrels in winter! The naturalists say they are
mostly torpid; yet evidently that little pocket-faced depredator, the
chipmunk, was not carrying buckwheat for so many days to his hole for
nothing: was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or providing against
the demands of a very active appetite? Red and gray squirrels are more
or less active all winter, though very shy, and, I am inclined to think,
partially nocturnal in their habits. Here a gray one has just
passed,--came down that tree and went up this; there he dug for a
beechnut, and left the burr on the snow. How did he know where to dig?
During an unusually severe winter I have known him to make long
journeys to a barn, in a remote field, where wheat was stored. How did
he know there was wheat there? In attempting to return, the
adventurous creature was frequently run down and caught in the deep
snow.
His home is in the trunk of some old birch or maple, with an entrance
far up amid the branches. In the spring he builds himself a
summer-house of small leafy twigs in the top of a neighboring beech,
where the young are reared and much of the time is passed. But the
safer retreat in the maple is not abandoned, and both old and young
resort thither in the fall, or when danger threatens. Whether this
temporary residence amid the branches is for elegance or pleasure, or
for sanitary reasons or domestic convenience, the naturalist has
forgotten to mention.

The elegant creature, so cleanly in its habits, so graceful in its carriage,
so nimble and daring in its movements, excites feelings of admiration
akin to those awakened by the birds and the fairer forms of nature. His
passage through the trees is almost a flight. Indeed, the flying squirrel
has little or no advantage over him, and in speed and nimbleness cannot
compare with him at all. If he miss his footing and fall, he is sure to
catch on the next branch; if the connection be broken, he leaps
recklessly for the nearest spray or limb, and secures his hold, even if it
be by the aid of his teeth.
His career of frolic and festivity begins in the fall, after the birds have
left us and the holiday spirit of nature has commenced to subside. How
absorbing the pastime of the sportsman who goes to the woods in the
still October morning in quest of him! You step lightly across the
threshold of the forest, and sit down upon the first log or rock to await
the signals. It is so still that the ear suddenly seems to have acquired
new powers, and there is no movement to confuse the eye. Presently
you hear the rustling of a branch, and see it sway or spring as the
squirrel leaps from or to it; or else you hear a disturbance in the dry
leaves, and mark one running upon the ground. He has probably seen
the intruder, and, not liking his stealthy movements, desires to avoid a
nearer acquaintance. Now he mounts a stump to see if the way is clear,
then pauses a moment at