I have heard old hunters say that, if the squirrels are numerous in the summer, the bears will be plenty in the fall, and also that their numbers give a sure indication of a severe winter. This saying, I believe to be true; because neither the squirrels nor bears are plentiful, unless there is an abundant supply of beech-mast, butter-nuts, hickory-nuts, &c., which Providence has kindly provided in more superabundant quantity on the approach of a longer and severer winter than usual.
Besides the Niger, or black squirrel, there are three other species in Canada West; first, the Cinereus, or grey squirrel, which is larger than the black squirrel. Its fur is something better, but the animal is not near so numerous. Secondly, the Ruber, or red squirrel, smaller than the last, but equally destructive.
The chitmunck, or Siriatus, or ground squirrel, is much smaller and more mischievous than any of the former species. The ridge of the back is marked with a black stripe; the sides are of a reddish yellow, spotted with white; the feet and legs pale red; the eyes black and projecting. These pretty little creatures never run up trees, unless they are pursued. They burrow and form their habitations under ground with two entrances. During the maize-harvest, they fill their mouths so full of corn that their cheeks distend to the size of a hen’s egg. The chitmunck sometimes inhabits hollow trees and logs.
I have frequently cut down trees in which they had deposited their winter-store, to the amount of half-a-bushel of beech-mast, Indian corn, and grain of different descriptions. It is a very curious circumstance that, before storing away for the winter, they carefully skin every beechnut.
Towards the spring, when the days begin to be a little warm, they leave their winter-holes and enter the barns—compelled, most probably, by the failure of their winter-store. Great numbers are then destroyed by the cats. Their fur is of little value, and their flesh uneatable.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE REBEL, VON-EGMOND, THE FIRST AGRICULTURAL SETTLER ON THE HURON.—CUTTING THE FIRST SHEAF.
The celebrated Anthony J.W.G. Von Egmond, who commanded the rebels at Gallows Hill during Mackenzie’s rebellion, was the first agricultural settler on the Huron tract. He had formerly been a Colonel in the old Imperial Army; and after Buonaparte’s abdication and retirement to Elba, he joined the Allies, and held the rank of an officer in one of the Belgian regiments at Waterloo.
He was a pushing, clever sort of man; and had he but been contented, and stuck to his last, instead of troubling his head about politics, he would, in all probability, have become one of the richest and most independent farmers in the Huron tract.
Within the short period of twenty months, Von Egmond had chopped and cleared, fit for a crop, nearly a hundred acres of land, fifty of which were sown wheat. As this was the first field ripe in the tract, the old man determined to celebrate the event by asking some of the gentlemen connected with the Canada Company to dinner, and to witness the cutting of the first sheaf.