The life story of a squirrel

by T. C. Bridges

I cannot tell you all our wanderings or the perils that we encountered by the way. Twice Walnut was very nearly caught by a weasel; once a wide-winged hen sparrow-hawk came whistling down out of the blue as we were crossing an open field, and we escaped only by a happy accident into an old drain-tile which happened to lie near by. In this narrow refuge we both squeezed our trembling bodies until the bird of prey had departed in disgust.

We travelled very slowly, stopping sometimes for a whole day in any coppice in which we happened to find ourselves. Several times we almost made up our minds to remain for good in one or other of these woods, but always the same difficulty stood in our way. The scarcity of food was universal. All the country-side had suffered alike from the great drought of the early summer, and mast, acorns, and nuts alike were conspicuous by their absence. As far as the present went, we did well enough. In autumn a squirrel can always find food of some kind or another.

The love of wandering was like a fever. In the course of a week or so we two had become regular vagabonds. There was an absolute fascination in new scenes each day and new quarters each night; and, feeling that we had cut ourselves off for ever from all our ties, there seemed no special object in stopping anywhere in particular.

And yet at times I was anxious. I knew well enough that winter was coming, and that we must settle down and find a home and collect stores before the cold weather.

There came a morning when the sky was full of high wind cloud, but the air so clear that distant objects seemed but a few fields away, and, leaving a small fir-plantation on the flank of a hill where we had spent the night, we looked down upon a deep valley, along the bottom of which was a long line of timber, wide in some places, narrow in others. Between the thinning autumn foliage one caught here and there the sparkle of running water. A mile or more down the valley, and on the far side of the river, a large old-fashioned house, that vaguely reminded me of the Hall, lay against the steep side of the opposite slope, with gardens terraced to the water-edge.

The wood behind it was all that we could have hoped, and more. Ancient trees of enormous girth and size grew so thick and close that the sun seldom if ever reached the thickets of undergrowth beneath their spreading tops. Hardly a sign was to be seen of the interfering hand of man, and though the place was full of wild life—rabbits, wood-pigeons, and the like—pheasants were conspicuous by their absence. A peculiarity of the wood, no doubt on account of its damp, sheltered position, was the immense amount of ivy which covered the massive trunks with clinging tendrils and dark green leaves. There was food too, for the oaks whose roots no doubt penetrated far below the level of the stream, had a fair crop of acorns, and, better still, there were hazel-bushes close along the water’s edge which were still fairly full of ripe nuts. The place was a perfect Paradise from a squirrel’s point of view, and my half-joking suggestion of spending the winter in it speedily became a fixed idea.

The first thing to do was to find a residence. This was an easy task, for there were dozens to choose from. Walnut was very keen upon an old magpie’s nest which he found in a huge thorn-tree, and which was still in excellent repair even to the roof; but I had had enough of built nests, and preferred a knot-hole in a beech. Once a squirrel takes to living in holes in trees, he usually sticks to the same description of residence to the end of his days.

One fact which struck me as odd during our first day’s exploration of the river-side wood was the almost entire absence of our own tribe. We only saw two squirrels besides ourselves, and they were young and anything but friendly. In fact, they both bolted before we could have a word with them.

It was the drumming of heavy rain among the dying foliage above that woke us at daylight next morning. The sky was one uniform grey, and everything was soaking and dripping. We had reason indeed to be thankful that we had found a warm dry home, for this weather looked like lasting.

Last it did, all day long, and as there was nothing else to do we curled up and slept. Evening came, and still it rained—harder if anything than before. It was too wet to go out and forage, and so we went hungry to bed. It is a fortunate dispensation that we squirrel folk can go for long periods without food if we can find a dry place to sleep in, for I have seldom known a squirrel who would not sooner be hungry than wet.