The squirrel in the woods is as full of frolic and play as a kitten. One would think that it had not a care or anxiety of any kind to break in upon its play. And yet it has food to find, a family to bring up, a winter nest to make, and several stores of food to lay up ready for those occasional days when it wakes up from its long winter's sleep.

This winter sleep of the squirrel, and some other animals, is something very strange, which we do not thoroughly understand. With the first touch of winter's cold, they curl themselves up, and fall into a sleep which lasts until the return of spring. This sleep, or hibernation as it is properly called, is a very useful habit for the animals which are subject to it, because it enables them to live on at a time when their food is very often scarce. During this sleep their bodies scarcely waste away at all, and a few good meals, when they wake, soon put them right; whereas, if they were always running about, they would be almost incessantly hungry, and would probably die of starvation during the winter.

Some animals remain torpid throughout the winter, while others wake up occasionally, and enjoy a day's life every now and then in the midst of their long sleep. The common squirrel is one of the latter. Whenever there is a warm, mild day in winter, it wakes up, feeling very hungry, and turns out of its nest for a run. If it trusted to chance for a meal, it would have to return to its nest hungry. But during the autumn it has gathered large quantities of hazel-nuts, acorns, beech-nuts, and fir-cones, and has stored them away in various holes near its nest. When, therefore, it has enjoyed one of its winter runs, it visits one of these store-houses, makes a hearty meal, and then returns to its nest to sleep for a few more days, or a few more weeks, until another warm day comes round.

The squirrel selects for his storehouses various holes in the trunk of the tree near his nest, which are often the deserted nests of some wood-pecker. Indeed, he is not always content to wait until the wood-pecker deserts her nest, especially as he relishes the taste of an egg. A writer in the Standard describes how he saw a wood-pecker turned out of her house to make room for an impudent squirrel. The squirrel, descending backwards down a tree-trunk, suddenly found his hind legs in a hole. Probably he felt something sharp pecking at them, for he drew them out quickly, and rapidly climbed to a branch immediately above. A moment later a wood-pecker flew out of the hole. The squirrel watched her out of sight, and then returned to the nest, and helped himself to an egg or two, which he carried up to his perch, and ate.

When these were disposed of, he descended once more to the wood-pecker's nest and waited for the return of the bird. The moment she appeared at the entrance to her nest, the squirrel flew at her like an angry cat. The startled wood-pecker fled in fear, and the squirrel came forth triumphantly and went away for a short time. Whilst he was away the wood-pecker came again and looked into her nest. Something, however, probably a broken egg, displeased her, and she flew away again. Shortly afterwards her mate looked into the nest, but he, too, was dissatisfied, and flew away. Many times they returned to the nest, but always with the same result. At length they seemed to make up their minds that they could never make their home in that nest again, and they flew away to another part of the wood. The squirrel promptly took possession of the deserted nest, and when autumn came he turned it into a store-house for nuts.

W. A. Atkinson.