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SQUIRRELS, FOXES,
AND OTHERS “Do you
know where
there are any flying squirrels?” I asked a friend, two or three weeks
ago. My
friend, I should mention, is a farmer, living a mile or two away from
the
village, and, being much out of doors with his eyes open, has sometimes
good
things to show me. With all the rest, he has more than once taken me to
a
flying squirrel's tree and given me a chance to see the creature
“fly.” This
peculiar
member of the squirrel family, as all readers may be presumed to know,
is
nocturnal in its habits, and for that reason is seldom seen by ordinary
strollers. Once my friend, who was just then at work in the woods,
found a
hollow tree in which one was living, and we visited the spot together.
I
posted myself conveniently, and he went up to the tree and hammered
upon it
with his axe. Out peeped the squirrel at a height of perhaps twenty
feet, and
as the blows continued it “took wing” and came to the ground safely,
and more
or less gracefully, alighting at the foot of another tree some distance
away.
At all other times I have seen the flight from outside nests, as they
may be
called — bulky aggregations of leaves and twigs placed in the bare tops
of
moderately tall, slender trees, preferably gray birches, and mostly in
swampy
woods. On the
present
occasion my friend told me that he knew of no nests now in use, but
that if I
would come to his house the next morning he would go with me in search
of some.
I called for him at the hour appointed. Squirrels or no squirrels, it
is always
worth while to take a walk in good company. He led me
along the
highway for a quarter of a mile, and then struck into a wood-road,
which
presently brought us into a swampy forest, with here and there a bit of
pond,
which we must go out of our way to cross on the ice (a light snow had
covered
it within twenty-four hours), on the lookout for fox tracks and what
not. We
were headed for the “city-house lot,” he told me. “The
city-house
lot,” said I; “what is that?” “Why,
there used to
be two or three houses over in this direction. The largest of them, the
one
that stood the longest, was known as the city house. More than fifty
years ago,
before my father came here to live, it was moved to a place on the main
road.
You must remember it. It was pulled down, or fell to pieces, within six
or
eight years.” I did
remember it,
but had never known its name or its history. The surprising thing about
the
story was the fact that there was no indication of a road hereabout,
nor any
sign that there had ever been one; and all the while we were plunging
deeper
and deeper into the woods, now following a footpath, now leaving it for
a short
cut among the trees. By and by we came to a drier spot, and an old
cellar-hole.
This was not the city-house cellar, however, but that of some smaller
house.
About it were evidences of a former clearing, though a casual observer
would
scarcely have noticed them. Tufts of beard-grass stood above the snow,
—
“Indian grass,” my guide called it, — and the remains of an ancient
stone wall
still marked the line, if one might guess, where the grazing-land had
been
divided from the tillage. It was a farm in ruins. Soon we
came to a
larger cellar-hole, of which, as of the smaller one, bushes and trees
bad long
ago taken possession. Here had stood the city house, a “frame”
structure
(whence its name, probably), a famous affair in its day, the pride of
its
owner's heart. It was one of five or six houses, if I understood my
informant
correctly, that had once been scattered over this part of the town of
Weston
(or what is at present the town of Weston) within a radius of a mile or
so. Of
them all not a trace remains now but so many half-filled cellars. I thought
of
something I had been saying lately about the manner in which the forest
reclaims Massachusetts land as soon as its human possessors let go
their hold
upon it. Now it was suggested to me that if a man is ambitious to do
something
that will last, he had better not set up a house or a monument, but dig
a hole
in the ground. Humility helps to permanence. The lower you get, the
less danger
of falling. Nature is slower to fill up than to pull down, though she
will do
either with all thoroughness, give her time enough. To her a man's life
is but
a clock's tick, and all his constructions are but child's play in the
sand. A
trite bit of moralizing? Well, perhaps it is; but it sounded anything
but
trite, as the old cellar-hole spoke it to me. A word is like a bullet:
its
force is in the power behind it. Not far
beyond this
point we found ourselves in a gray-birch swamp. Here, if anywhere,
should be
the nests we were in search of. And soon we began to see them, one
here,
another there. We followed the same course with them all; my companion
shook or
jarred the tree, while I stood off and watched for the squirrels. And
the
result was alike in all cases. Every nest was empty. We tried at least
a score,
and had our labor for our pains. “There are no flying squirrels this
year,” my
companion kept saying. Perhaps they had migrated. With one or two
exceptions,
indeed, the nests could be set down in advance — from
their color and evident dilapidation — as being at least a year old. Once we
started a
rabbit, and here and there a few chickadees accosted us. Once, I think,
we
heard the voice of a golden-crowned kinglet. For the rest, the woods
seemed to
be deserted, and at the end of our long détour we came back to the road
half a
mile above the point at which we had left it. And still
the world
is not depopulated, even in winter, nor are all the pretty wild animals
asleep.
The snakes are, to be sure, and the frogs (though hylas were peeping
late in
December), and the chipmunks and the woodchucks; but there is abundant
life
stirring, nevertheless. Yesterday
I called
on my friend again, and together we walked up the road — a back-country
thoroughfare.
This time, also, a light snow had just fallen, and my companion,
better
informed than I in such matters, began to discuss footprints with me. “You know
this
one?” he asked. “Oh, yes;
a
rabbit.” “And this
one?” “A fox,”
said I,
doubtfully. “Yes,
indeed. See
the shape and size of the foot. Yes, that’s a fox.” “And this
one?” “Oh,
that’s a
kitty.” (A cat, he meant to say.) “Strange how many cats are prowling
about
this country at night,” he continued. “I have caught two this season,
and C—
has caught two.” “Do you
skin them?”
“Yes,”
with a
laugh. Here were
red-squirrel tracks, and here a big dog's, and here again a fox's. At
another
point a bevy of quail had crossed the road. “One, two, three,” my
farmer began
to count. “Yes; there were twelve.” I had remarked, just before, that I
hadn’t
seen a quail for I didn’t know how long. “And look here,” he said, as
we
approached the farm on our return. He led the way to a diminutive
chicken-coop
sitting by itself in the orchard. A single hen, which had been ailing,
was
confined in it, he said. A fox had gone round and round it in the
night, and
once had stopped to scratch at the back side of it. “He knew
what was
in there,” said I. The farmer laughed. “Oh, he is
an old
fellow,” he answered. “I have a trap set for him just where he used to
pass.
Now he crosses the field, but he goes round that spot! I see his
tracks. They
say it is easy to trap foxes. Perhaps it is; but it isn’t for me.” Yet he has
shown me
— not this year — more than one handsome skin. Once, too,
he
showed me the fox himself. Hounds were baying in the distance as I came
to the
house on my Sunday morning walk, and we spoke of their probable course.
He
thought it likely that they would cross a certain field, and taking a
by-road
that would carry us within sight of it, we kept our eyes out till the
dogs
seemed to have diverged in the wrong direction. Then I was walking
carelessly
along, talking as usual (a bad habit of mine), when my companion
seized me by
both shoulders and swung me sharply about. “Look at that!” he said. And
there
stood the fox, five or ten rods away, facing us squarely. He had come
up a
little rise of ground, and had stopped as he saw us. But for my
friend's
muscular assistance, I should have missed him, near as he was, for in
one
second he was gone; and though we scaled the wall instantly and ran up
the
slope, we got no further sight of him. Yes, if
you are a
discouraged, winter-killed nature lover, who has begun to think that
Massachusetts woods — woods within sight of the State House dome — are
pretty
much devoid of wild life, go out after a light snowfall and read the
natural
history record of a single night. We shall not be without woods, nor
will the
woods be without inhabitants, for a good while yet. |