The life story of a squirrel

by T. C. Bridges

‘They don’t appear to worry you very much, anyhow,’ I retorted. ‘How do you keep so fat?’

‘Oh, I find plenty of food,’ he answered lightly; but there was a sort of guilty air about him which puzzled me at the time.

A day or two later, when I caught him devouring a nestful of the little blue eggs of the hedge-sparrow, I understood.

Now, eating eggs is a thing which is considered by well-bred squirrels to be thoroughly bad form; but, after all, it was no business of mine. Rusty was old enough to take his own course, so I said nothing about it. I have often blamed myself since, for one bad habit leads to another; and no doubt my brother’s indulgence in eggs that spring was the first step which led to the sad end which afterwards befell him.

To return to my own affairs—our kittens grew with astonishing rapidity, and once they opened their eyes began to prove decidedly more interesting. They were three bucks and a doe. In a month they were half as big as myself, and their hair had grown to quite a respectable length. Being April kittens, their coats were entirely different from the one which I had worn during my first summer. Mine had been reddish-brown, and I had had no tufts on my ears, but our young ones had greyish-brown coats like the winter one which I was just beginning to discard, and they wore smart little tufts on each ear as well as hair on their palms. One of them, however, was much darker than the other three.

Sable was the best of mothers, and took the greatest care of her young family, keeping them beautifully neat and clean. Before long they grew big enough to be taken out of the nest, and then began a very busy time for their mother and myself. Jumping and climbing lessons were the order of the day. Remembering how well my mother had instructed me, I took the greatest pains to show them how to spring from one branch to another, how to swing by one hand or foot, to fall without hurting themselves, and how to hide instantly when any danger approached. Sometimes we took them down on to the turf below, which was always kept close cropped by the rabbits, and the children enjoyed nothing better than rolling about there, tumbling head over heels, and indulging in all kinds of wild antics.

It amused me to see how inquisitive they all were. Curiosity is, of course, the besetting sin of the whole of our tribe, and many a one of us has it brought to grief. Anything the least bit out of the way had to be examined at once, and no amount of reproof ever seemed to restrain them. Curiosity very nearly cost Walnut—for so I called the little dark chap, who was my special favourite—his life.

One morning I had been over to the other end of the coppice, to a horse-chestnut tree which I knew of. Young horse-chestnut buds, I may remark, make as good a breakfast as almost anything I know of. When I came back I found Sable running about on the ground in a most distracted fashion. So soon as she caught sight of me she came flying to tell me that Walnut was missing. She was so excited that I had some difficulty at first in making out the facts of the case. It appeared that she had had the whole family out for a game on the grassy sward which bordered the wood path when, all of a sudden, she became conscious that only three of them were in sight. Walnut had completely disappeared. The others explained that they had been playing hide and seek, and that Walnut had been hiding. They had looked everywhere for him, but could neither find nor hear him.

Sending them all three back home out of mischief, their mother had set to work to make a vigorous search, but after half an hour’s hard hunting, had found no sign of her missing son. I joined her; and we began to quarter out the ground systematically, she taking one side of the path, I the other. But not so much as a hair of Walnut’s brush could we see; and when the shadows had nearly reached their shortest, I began to feel almost certain that some prowling weasel had caught our poor son. At last it occurred to me that the adventurous young rascal might have gone through the hedge into the open field, and I myself crossed the hedge and ditch. I think I have mentioned before that near the coppice gate on the meadow side was a strip of sandy ground with patches of hawthorn, blackberry bushes, and gorse, which was riddled with rabbit holes. As I wandered sadly across this, occasionally stopping to give a slight bark or a stamp, I suddenly heard a distinct reply. In great delight I hurried forward to a thick clump of gorse from which the sound seemed to come. But when I reached the spot there was no sign of life. I stamped again, and this time there was no doubt whatever about the answer. But it came from underground! Then I knew what had happened. Walnut had evidently tumbled into a rabbit-earth and was unable to get out. Very soon I found the hole, and there, sure enough, in the darkness some feet below me I saw my son’s eyes.