Part 7

Every movement of this little squirrel is accomplished without apparent muscular energy. He seems to float up a tree. If you are near enough you may hear the pricking of his claws on the bark, but you cannot detect a muscular effort. He flashes along the limbs in some mysterious way, never stopping, like the gray squirrel, to measure distances before a leap. If he misses and falls, he usually catches by a claw to some twig, thus saving himself. If he falls to the ground, it does not harm or disconcert him. He is up the tree in a jiffy, spitefully saying things that sound to the listener very much like swearing.

From the middle of April to the first of September the male squirrel leads a jolly, rollicking life. He is as restless and noisy as a schoolboy, and as full of fun. He will hang head down, holding on by his hind claws, just for the fun of the thing. In the tree-tops he is king. He rules the blue jays and crows, and races them out of the pine-trees whenever he feels disposed. He hazes the gray squirrel, but does not unsex him as alleged. This silly tale is on a par with snakes' stingers and hoop snakes. Any one that has had the opportunity to observe squirrels the year round, knows that chipmunks, red squirrels, and gray squirrels show the same appearance of being unsexed, except in the mating season.

The gray is no match for the red in a tree-top in a trial of speed. He usually keeps to the ground, where his long leaps give him the advantage over his fiery little foe. Many a sprinting match of this kind takes place in my dooryard. If a red surprises a gray squirrel stealing food, he sounds his war-cry, and in a mad rush is on to the gray before he can make off with the bit of food which he has appropriated. The gray, finding that he is hard pressed, runs around the cabin with the red hot at his heels. Round and round they go, the gray silent, the red yelling like a little demon. When the gray has had several narrow escapes, he drops the food and retreats unmolested. The red picks up the food and takes it to a favorite limb, where he devours it, talking to himself, meanwhile, about "that gray thief."

In all my years of observation, once only have I known a gray squirrel to fight a red. I think it was hunger and desperation that induced the gray to fight. The gray was an old male, certainly three times as large as the red. The latter was an old male, and had held the dooryard for several years against all comers. He was a sagacious, grizzled old warrior, and I named him Bismarck. The fight took place in my dooryard. It was a bloody battle for bread on a cold, drizzly day in midwinter. The gray was whipped inside of three minutes. The snow was crimsoned with his blood, and when he fled he left a bloody trail behind. At no time was there a ghost of a chance for him to win. The muscular energy of the red was astounding. His movements were too quick for the eye. While the fight lasted, all I could see was a bounding mass of red and gray. The red squirrel did not appear to be severely wounded, anyway he remained out in the cold and rain to lick his wounds. Perhaps it was squirrel surgery to prefer the cold to a warm nest.

From my observations I find that the reds seldom chase the grays, unless the latter enter territory which the reds claim the right to hold and protect.

Four-footed wild animals, with a few exceptions, own farms, gardens, or house-lots. That is, they hold exclusive control over a limited area around their nesting sites. You seldom see two woodchuck holes near each other, or two rabbit burrows. The red squirrel runs a fruit farm. He owns and controls trees that bear nuts or cones, and other reds respect his rights, and do not invade his territory unless there is a famine. A red squirrel will fight savagely for his home and property, and usually drives all intruders from his domain.

Young squirrels remain with their parents through the first winter, but in April the female turns the family over to the male, and makes another nest of moss, leaves, and dry grass in the top of a tall pine or hemlock-tree. While she is engaged by new duties, the male looks after the young squirrels that are now full grown. He finishes their education, and locates the young males on territory which they ever after hold. The young females, later on, are mated, and remove to the locality inhabited by their mates. Whether the parents have anything to do in selecting sons-in-law is beyond my knowledge. I have known an old male to fly into a passion when a smart young red tried to flirt with his daughter. The flirtation was cut short by the angry father, who run the young dandy off his territory. Kicked him out-of-doors, so to speak. Another young red that courted the daughter was tolerated, if not welcomed, by the father. He was the choice of the old fellow beyond doubt, but I do not know how the young lady decided the matter. Perhaps she eloped with the smart young red.

Bismarck, the grizzled old warrior, held my dooryard for several years. One winter, when there was a famine in the land because the nut crop had failed, a muscular young red thought he could drive Bismarck away. A fierce battle was the consequence, and Bismarck killed his antagonist, but was disfigured for life by the loss of the end of his tail.

While Bismarck reigned, the only squirrel that gained a foothold in the dooryard without his consent was his wife. He chased her away time after time, but like some human wives, she persisted, and won the day. Bismarck gave in when, instead of running away, his wife adopted the plan of running spirally up and down the tree-trunks. Mrs. Bismarck's favorite tree was a large hemlock, which was about eighteen inches in diameter. The trunk of the tree was very short, not over eight feet in length from the ground to the lower limbs. The squirrels made two turns in either going up or down the tree, and their speed was too swift for the human eye. A brown band seemed for a moment wound about the tree, shifting as the squirrels ascended or descended. It was two weeks before Bismarck would allow his mate to remain in the dooryard. When peace was declared the two would eat side by side, but with Bismarck always scolding and growling, while his wife discreetly remained silent.

Bismarck was my schoolmaster. He taught me that squirrels think, plan, and reason just as human beings do. Every time I threw to him a nut or bit of bread, I would see him do the thinking act. He would take the food to a boulder, where he would stop, hold up one foot ready to start again, and think out a good hiding-place. When he had thought out a spot, he would run directly to it and conceal the food under leaves or pine-needles, and return to the dooryard for more. No two nuts or bits of bread were concealed in the same place. Several times I experimented to find out how many trips Bismarck would make. The greatest number was fifty-one. While the experiment was going on, I noted each hiding-place, as well as I could, and afterward saw the squirrel go to many. He certainly remembered each spot, and his keen scent did the rest.

Bismarck was a thrifty squirrel. He did not disturb his hidden store while the food held out in the dooryard. He would call around early in the morning, and if he found me eating breakfast under the trees, he would run to a limb just over my head and look down in a cute way that meant "breakfast for two." If I did not respond he would probably say to himself, "The hermit don't mean to feed me to-day. I must fall back on the food that I hid away yesterday. Let me see, that first nut is under the edge of a boulder just back of the cabin." Off he goes straight to the spot. He noses out the nut, which he eats on the limb over my head, scattering the bits of shell on to the breakfast-table. He is very sociable while eating, for he stops now and then to say something to me. I do not understand his exact language, but I know by the tone that he means to be friendly.

Bismarck did not always hide bread beneath pine-needles or leaves. At a certain season of the year the trees about my cabin were made into storehouses. This season was governed by the blue jays. When they were nesting they did not come to the cabin and Bismarck could store food in the trees without fear of being robbed.

My attention was called early to the fact that a gale of wind did not dislodge the pieces of bread which the squirrel had stored on the limbs of a hemlock-tree. I found that each piece was held in place by a small twig. Scores of times afterward I saw Bismarck lift up a twig with his hands and then push the piece of bread with his nose to the junction of twig and limb. Of course the natural spring of the twig held the bread in place.

Bismarck always stored mushrooms in the trees, for he knew that the blue jays did not eat such food. He would drop the stem of the mushroom between the prongs of a forked limb, if there was cap enough left to hold the same in place, otherwise he treated it just as he would a piece of bread.

How Bismarck acquired a knowledge of the edible mushrooms is a mystery beyond my powers. Doubtless, when he attended the Chickaree College, he studied natural history instead of the dead languages. He knew how to harvest mushrooms. He gathered them soon after they appeared above the ground. Gathered thus, they would keep several days, while a few hours' growth would spoil them if left in the ground.

Bismarck knew how to eat mushrooms. He did not begin on the freshly gathered ones; he knew they would keep, and he selected those that would decay shortly. Human beings eat the specked apples from motives of economy, and the same impulse controls the squirrel.

In the woods about my cabin grow many varieties of the poisonous mushrooms. One deadly variety--the "Destroying Angel"--possesses a form most pleasing to the eye. Its symmetrical shape and pearly white color give it a look of innocence that has lured many a human being to an early grave. I have never seen a tooth-mark by a squirrel, mouse, or mole in one of these deadly mushrooms, which goes to prove that the wild things know more than some human beings.

A few years ago, while out on a walk with the Appalachian Mountain Club, I told a professor, who was an expert on mushrooms, that I used the mushrooms which were approved by the squirrels, and no others. He said that I was risking my life, for he claimed that squirrels could eat poisonous varieties that might kill human beings. I thought that the professor knew more about mushrooms than he did about squirrels, so his warning was wasted on me. Up to date I have found the squirrels all right, and I feel no fear when eating what they eat.

For years I attended a squirrels' school, and Bismarck was the schoolmaster. He taught me many things relating to squirrel life. Much of the knowledge acquired was wholly unknown to me before.

When Bismarck first introduced himself to me I think he was an old bachelor or a widower. Three years later he excavated a storehouse in a bank, beneath a boulder, and made a sleeping-nest in a pine-tree, both in the dooryard. The storehouse was used but little after the first winter. The next spring he took to himself a mate, but did not introduce her to the dooryard. Some distance from the cabin, in a swamp, Bismarck's mate made a neat little nest in a hemlock-tree. Here she reared two baby squirrels. Bismarck did not take much interest in his family through the summer. He spent most of the time in the dooryard, sleeping in his own nest by night. By day his time was occupied in fighting the crows, and in driving squirrels and birds from the dooryard.

There was always a good lot of food for Bismarck to choose from, and I thought he would give up hard work and lead a life of ease. But I did not know the thrifty ways of the red squirrel. When the harvest season for hazelnuts drew near, Bismarck buckled down to hard work. He began his new life by calling often on his family in the hemlock-tree. One day I found Bismarck and his wife digging beneath a pine-tree that grew on the high land just out of the swamp. They brought out a great quantity of pine rootlets during the next two days. There was not much soil, which indicated that the squirrels had discovered a natural cavity, partly filled with pine rootlets. The third day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the work stopped.

Mrs. Bismarck ran to a pine-root, sat up straight, folded her hands, and said something. Mr. Bismarck ran to her side, folded his hands, and made a reply. Both squirrels looked toward the hole beneath the tree by turning half-way round. Then they looked at each other, and Mrs. Bismarck ran into the hole, and immediately appeared and said something that sounded very much like "It is well." Then both squirrels scampered away. The winter storehouse was completed.

When the hazelnuts were ripe Bismarck and his mate began to fill the storehouse. Bismarck gathered the hazelnuts about the cabin, while his mate gathered those around the home nest. Bismarck did a lot of running, for he carried but one nut at a time. He always worked under high pressure, running to and fro at the top of his speed.

I noticed that he left many nuts on the bushes, but when I investigated I found a worm in each nut--a good reason for rejecting them; but as the husks seemed perfect, how did Bismarck know the worms were there? I think his keen scent was the secret. By the sense of smell he could tell a wormy from a sound nut. So could I after the nut was smashed, but not before.

After the hazelnuts, beechnuts were gathered. But right here competition was too great for the squirrels. The blue jays haunted the beech groves, and could load up with from twelve to eighteen nuts, then could use their wings against the squirrels' legs, so the latter were usually short on beechnuts.

The acorn followed the beechnut crop, and as the woods of Cape Ann are made up mostly of oak-trees, there were usually nuts enough for Bismarck's family and to spare.

Besides being a hard worker, Bismarck proved to me, in many ways, that he was quick-witted and resourceful. A sweet acorn-tree near my cabin was loaded with nuts. Beneath the limbs on the south side was a carpet of pine-needles, while under the limbs on the north side grew a dense mass of brambles and catbriers. Bismarck did not drop a nut into the mass of briers, but carried each nut--one at a time--to the clear side before dropping it. Could human intelligence do more?

When Bismarck and his mate had stowed away food enough for winter, they made a winter nest in the pine-tree that grew above the storehouse. In the new nest the whole family passed the winter after the manner of red squirrels.