The life story of a squirrel

by T. C. Bridges

‘Wild-cat!’ exclaimed I. ‘Why, I’d no idea there were any left in these parts!’

‘No more had I,’ put in Rusty. ‘Mother says that a very old squirrel once told her that his father had seen a wild-cat, but that’s ever so many years ago. There are none left now.’

‘None left!’ returned the other angrily. ‘Very well; all I say is, wait. Your turn will come.’

He was clearing out in a huff when I stopped him.

‘Wait a minute. I want to hear all about it. Anyone can see you’ve been badly mauled. Come with us up into our beech-tree, and I’ll find you a better breakfast than this half-rotten stuff; then you can tell us all about it.’

After a little more persuasion, he cooled down and accompanied us, and we all heard his story. It appeared that a week before he and one of his brothers had visited a Spanish chestnut they knew of at some distance from their home, which was in a large wood about a mile away, when, without the slightest warning, a great cat had sprung out of a patch of dead bracken close by, and with two quick swings of her terrible paws bowled them both over. Our new acquaintance owed his life to the fact that he had seen the enemy coming just in time to duck, and, consequently, had received the full force of the blow upon his neck instead of his head. But even so he had been stunned, and had recovered his senses only in time to see the savage beast running rapidly away among the underbrush with the dead body of his brother swinging limp between her powerful jaws. Knowing that she would come back for him, he had summoned all his remaining energies, and succeeded in climbing into a pollard oak and hiding in a knot-hole in its spreading top. From there he watched the robber return, moving noiselessly across the dead grass and leaves on velvet-cushioned paws; noted the grey coat, stiff and coarse, the short tail, broad head, and small, close-rounded ears; had seen her search snuffing among the dead leaves, moving round and round in impatient circles, and shivered in his terror. But fortune was good to him, for after a time, which seemed endless, the cat, tired of her vain search, had at last turned, and with tail straight up padded softly back the way she had come. But it was not until nearly sunset that the wounded squirrel had made shift to crawl home, sore and aching, and there he had lain for two whole days. Alas! the tale of his sorrows was not yet told. On the third day his mother went out about midday to bring in some food, and never came back! Towards evening his father had gone to search for her, and returned at dark with the terrible tidings that the same stealthy fiend had captured her too. He had found some gnawed bones and her brush—that was all!

By this time the whole wood was in a state of panic. Rabbits, pheasants, and squirrels, all had suffered alike. The cat, it was said, was only one of a family who had taken up their abode in an immense hollow hornbeam in the centre of the wood. A regular reign of terror set in, and our new friend, whose name was Cob, together with his father and his sister, the only survivors of the family, had decided to emigrate before worse happened.

We were all very sorry for the unfortunates. A worse time for squirrels to emigrate could hardly be imagined, for, of course, they had been forced to abandon all their winter stores and their nest, which had been strengthened against the cold weather. It was now too late in the season to collect a proper provision, and they stood a very good chance of starving if the winter should turn out a severe one. You will understand that we young ones, who had never yet been through a winter, were not able to realize quite how serious the misfortune was; but mother, who had seen the snows of three years, thoroughly comprehended the situation, and at once bade Rusty and myself do all we could to assist the unlucky family. Next morning we paid a visit to their temporary quarters, a large untidy hole in a hollow oak, and after first showing them where the last few nuts were to be found in the ditch below the hazel-bushes, set to work to discover better quarters for them. Of course, by this time we knew our coppice from end to end. There was not a tree we were not familiar with from root to topmost branch. But after a good deal of consideration and discussion, we decided that the best refuge was another hole lower down in our own tree. It was one that mother had thought of seriously, after father’s death, as a residence for ourselves, but had decided against as being rather too small. However, we found on making a thorough examination that the wood on one side of it was so rotten that it could easily be dug out, and then the hollow would be amply large enough to accommodate the three wanderers. They, on their part, were devoutly grateful for the trouble we had taken on their behalf, and thanked us most cordially. Cob’s sister, whose name was Sable, a little, dark-furred creature, quite touched me by her shyly-expressed gratitude.

Autumn was now far advanced, and we had had several very sharp frosts. Except for the oaks, to which their dead, dry leaves still clung, the trees were bare. Rusty and I took our morning exercise among the denser foliage of the evergreen firs and larches, of which there were fortunately a good number in our coppice. I say fortunately because, where these trees are handy a squirrel need never starve even in the hardest weather. Not that squirrels are given to starving. Unless owing to some quite unforeseen and unusual accident we are as well able to fend for ourselves even in the hardest winters as any inhabitants of the woodland.

The migrant birds had all left long ago, and the woods were quieter than of old. Not that there was not plenty of life remaining. The wood-pigeons still pecked among the beech leaves for mast; great tits and tomtits moved restlessly among the branches of our beech; flights of long-tail tits talked softly in the tops of the evergreens. Finches of many kinds—greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, and even a few hawfinches, feasted on the hawthorn berries which hung thickly on the bare hedges, and began to take their toll of the fast-reddening holly. The privet and mountain-ash berries were gone long ago. These form the pet dessert of bird life, and are always cleaned up almost before they are ripe. So, too, was the sticky scarlet fruit of three gnarled old yews which stood in a little group all by themselves just beyond the rabbit-warren where the ground sloped towards the brook. Thrushes and blackbirds still visited their’ dark recesses, but more from habit than for any other reason.