NATURE’S LITTLE STORE-KEEPER.

One of the most familiar of North American quadrupeds is the Hackee, or Chipping Squirrel, as he is sometimes termed, from the strange, quaint utterances which he emits while rollicking with his fellows or in quest of something to eat. He is a beautiful little creature, notable alike for the dainty elegance of his form and for the pleasing tints with which his dress is arrayed. His general color is brownish-gray upon the back, warming into orange-brown upon the forehead and hinder quarters. Five longitudinal black stripes and two streaks of yellowish-white adorn the dorsum and sides, which render him a most conspicuous being and one readily distinguishable from any other animal. His abdomen and throat are white. He is slightly variable in color according to locality, and has been known to be so capricious of hue as to become a pure white or a jetty black. But for the commonness of the species, which is found in great numbers in almost every place, his fur, from its extreme beauty, would long since have taken nearly as high rank as sable or ermine.

No quadruped is so brisk or so lively. His quick, rapid movements have not inaptly compared him to the wren. As he whisks about the branches of the brushwood and small timber among which he is chiefly met, or shoots through their interstices with his peculiar jerking movements, and his odd clicking cry, like the chip-chipping of newly-hatched chickens, the analogy between himself and the bird is strikingly apparent. Occurring in great plenty, and being a bold little creature, he is much persecuted by small boys, who, with long sticks, and well-directed blows, manage to fell to the earth many a luckless fellow as he endeavors to escape his pursuers by running along the rail fences.

Hackees delight in sequestered localities. There they tunnel their homes, preferring some old tree, or a spot of earth sheltered by a wall or a bank. Their burrows are rather complicated affairs, running often to great lengths, so that the task of digging the animal out of his retreat becomes one of no easy accomplishment. Sandy patches of ground, on the outskirts of a woods, are not unusually chosen for burrows. A hole, almost perpendicular, is drilled into the earth to a depth of three feet, and is thence continued with one or more windings, rising a little nearer the surface until it has advanced some nine or ten feet, when it is made to terminate in a large circular nest, made of oak leaves and dried grasses. Small lateral galleries branch off from the main burrow, in which these provident little creatures lay up their winter’s provisions. Wheat, Indian corn, buckwheat, hazel-nuts, acorns and the seeds of grasses have been found in their underground receptacles, a proof, were further evidence lacking, that they do not pass the cold famine months in a sluggish and benumbed condition. Several layers of leaves, aggregating nine inches in thickness, are often found over the entrance, as a protection from frosts, which are further prevented from intrusion by the sealing up of the mouth from within.

Everything is done by the Hackee in a business-like manner. In gathering his food, lest the sharp beak of the nut may injure his cheeks when he places the fruit in his pouch, he nips off the point, and then by the aid of his fore-paws deliberately pushes the nut into one of his pouches. Another and another are similarly treated, and taking a fourth between his teeth, he dives into his burrow, and, having packed them methodically away, returns to the surface for a fresh cargo. Four nuts are his load at each journey. With his check-pouches distended to their fullest capacity, and laboring most truly under an embarrassment of riches, the little fellow presents a most ludicrous appearance.

CHIPPING SQUIRRELS FEEDING.

When menaced by foes, by which so defenceless and conspicuous an animal is sure to be surrounded in great numbers, the Hackee makes at once for his burrow, and is there secure from the attacks of nearly all enemies. One foe there is, however, that cares naught for the burrow, but follows the poor Hackee through all of its windings, and never fails to attain his sanguinary object. This remorseless foe is the stoat, or ermine, whose only penchant is the blood, and not the flesh, of his victim.

HACKEE, OR CHIPPING SQUIRREL.
Laying up Food for the Famine of Winter.

Early in November the Hackee moves into his winter-quarters, excepting in occasional instances when the sun shines with peculiar warmth, and is not seen again until the beginning of spring. The young, to the number of four or five, are produced in May, and there is generally a second brood some time in August. A rather pugnacious animal is the male Hackee, and during the combats which are frequently waged when several males meet, their tails have been known to snap asunder from the violence of their movements, for these members, it is undoubtedly true, are wonderfully brittle in their structure.

Pretty as he is, and graceful as are his movements, it hardly pays to keep the animal in a domesticated state, for his temper is very uncertain, and he is generally sullen even towards his keeper. But could he be induced to take to the life of a captive kindly and pleasantly, he would, by his cunning little ways, prove a most agreeable companion.

Some years ago an American writer of note had a pair of these animals which made their home in the foundation wall of her house. A row of wild cherry trees stood near the lawn in the rear of the building, which the little fellows were wont to visit many times daily, carrying off in their pouches quite a number at a time of the numerous cherry pits that lay scattered over the ground.

The season being dry, one morning early the person to whom reference has been made repaired to the lawn and poured a pitcher of water over some plants that grew near her porch, when one of these squirrels was observed to pass among them on his way to the trees. He paused from his journey, sat up on his haunches, took one of the wet leaves in his hands, pressed the sides together for a trough for the moisture, and holding it to his mouth drank from it the water in the most comical fashion imaginable. He then went to another and another, drinking from five or six leaves in all, while she stood watching near by. A large saucer filled with water was placed near the plants, which the little fellows quickly discovered, and both thereafter drank and washed regularly at the dish.

A practice of testing their knowledge of nuts was then made. When cracked hickory nuts were given them, they at once sat down and picked out of them the meats, which they eagerly devoured. Cracked nuts, it would seem, were deemed worthless for storage. But, on the contrary, when whole nuts were given, they tested them, evidently by weight, to see if they were sound. Sound nuts were promptly transported to their burrow, but the poor ones were dropped. They were never known to be mistaken in their judgment, for the rejected nuts on being cracked were always found to be worthless.

Although the food of the Hackee is mostly vegetal in character, yet, like his English relative, he is occasionally carnivorous in his appetite, for he has been detected in the cruel act of robbing birds’ nests and devouring their callow young.

Some Squirrels are remarkable for their extreme agility in climbing trees, and in making extraordinary leaps from one bough to another or from some elevated spot to the earth. The Ground Squirrels, however, are intended to abide on the earth, and are seldom known to ascend trees to any great height. As they possess cheek-pouches, they are placed in a separate genus under the name of Tamias, which is a Greek word, signifying a store-keeper, and are distinct from the others in being furnished with these appendages. Tamias striatus is the appellation by which the subject of our sketch is known to the books.