FOUR MOLES' NESTS TOGETHER. THE BIG HILLOCK OF EARTH ABOVE THEM HAS ALL BEEN TAKEN AWAY SO THAT THEY COULD BE PHOTOGRAPHED
Another animal's nest which is easy to find is the squirrel's, but of course it is no use looking for this anywhere but in woods and places of that kind where you know there are squirrels about. A squirrel's nest is in a hole, or fork of a tree, and always, always out of reach. When it is in a fork of a tree it looks like an untidy bird's-nest, made of rather big twigs. It has a soft, warm lining, though, and, if you can get up to it, you may find the baby squirrels inside in June. If they are furry you can take them away, for then they are quite easy to bring up and tame.
The Squirrel. "Squirrel means Shadowtail"
Then there is the harvest-mouse's nest, which is the most beautifully made of all, and is usually to be found in cornfields, built some way up the stalks, and looking just like a bird's-nest except that it is quite round and has no opening that you can see. One can't very well walk about in a cornfield, but you have another chance of finding a harvest-mouse's nest in the hay-time, for they often build in the hay, and once I found one with babies in it, on a haycock, where it had been thrown without any one noticing it.
THE HARVEST MOUSE'S NEST
The most beautifully made of all
You have two chances, too, of finding a dormouse's nest, for this mouse builds one nest for the babies, and another to sleep in through the winter. Both of them are rather big compared with the harvest-mouse's nest, and they are generally made of moss and leaves, often honeysuckle leaves, which the mother dormouse seems to like, though I can't tell you why.
The dormouse often makes a sleeping-nest at the side of a path through a wood, and does not seem to fasten it very carefully, for one sometimes finds it in the middle of a path, as if the dormouse had turned over in his sleep and sent the whole thing rolling. It may be, though, that some hungry animal has pulled the nest out, and thinking the dormouse dead, preferred to take the chance of finding something alive and warm, and so left it.