er trusts to his own eyes, he is often
unable to find the exact tree which the squirrel has climbed, and of
course loses it.

A good squirrel-dog is a useful animal. The breed is not important.
The best are usually half-bred pointers. They should have good sight as
well as scent; should range widely, and run fast. When well trained
they will not take after rabbits, or any other game. They will bark
only when a squirrel is treed, and remain staunchly by the root of the
tree. The barking is necessary, otherwise the hunter, often separated
from them by the underwood, would not know when they had succeeded in
"treeing."

The squirrel seems to have little fear of the dog, and rarely ascends to
a great height. It is often seen only a few feet above him, jerking its
tail about, and apparently mocking its savage enemy below.

The coming up of the hunter changes the scene. The squirrel then takes
the alarm, and shooting up, conceals itself among the higher branches.

Taking it all in all, we know none of the smaller class of field sports
that requires greater skill, and yields more real amusement, than
hunting the squirrel.

Our Kentuckian comrade gave us an account of a grand squirrel-hunt got
up by himself and some neighbours, which is not an uncommon sort of
thing in the Western States. The hunters divided themselves into two
parties of equal numbers, each taking its own direction through the
woods. A large wager was laid upon the result, to be won by that party
that could bring in the greatest number of squirrels. There were six
guns on each side, and the numbers obtained at the end of a week--for
the hunt lasted so long--were respectively 5000, and 4780! Of course
the sport came off in a tract of country where squirrels were but little
hunted, and were both tame and plenty.

Such hunts upon a grand scale are, as already stated, not uncommon in
some parts of the United States. They have another object besides the
sport--that of thinning off the squirrels for the protection of the
planter's corn-field. So destructive are these little animals to the
corn and other grains, that in some States there has been at times a
bounty granted, for killing them. In early times such a law existed in
Pennsylvania, and there is a registry that in one year the sum of 8000
pounds was paid out of the treasury of this bounty-money, which at
threepence a head--the premium--would make 640,000, the number of the
squirrels kille