bolder and angrier
every minute. When he started to climb a tree he was hurled off twice
ere he reached a crotch and drew himself down into it. He was safe there
with his back against a big limb; they could not get at him from behind.
But the angry clamor in front frightened him, and again he started for
his place of refuge. His footing was unsteady now and his head dizzy
from the blows he had received. Before he had gone half a limb's length
he was again on the ground, with a dozen birds pecking at him as they
swooped over.

With his last strength he snapped viciously at his foes and rushed to
the linden. My window was open, and he came creeping, hurrying towards
it on the branch over which he had often capered so lightly in the
winter days. Over him clamored the birds, forgetting all fear of me in
their hatred of the nestrobber.

A dozen times he was struck on the way, but at every blow he clung to
the branch with claws and teeth, then staggered on doggedly, making no
defense. His whole thought now was to reach the window-sill.

At the place where he always jumped he stopped and began to sway,
gripping the bark with his claws, trying to summon strength for the
effort. He knew it was too much, but it was his last hope. At the
instant of his spring a robin swooped in his face; another caught him
a side blow in mid-air, and he fell heavily to the stones below.--Sic
semper tyrannis! yelled the robins, scattering wildly as I ran down the
steps to save him, if it were not too late.

He died in my hands a moment later, with curious maliciousness nipping
my finger sharply at the last gasp. He was the only squirrel of the lot
who knew how to hide in a line; and never a one since his day has taken
the jump from oak to maple over the driveway.

THE OL' BEECH PA'TRIDGE

Of all the wild birds that still haunt our remaining solitudes, the
ruffed grouse--the pa'tridge of our younger days--is perhaps the
wildest, the most alert, the most suggestive of the primeval wilderness
that we have lost. You enter the woods from the hillside pasture,
lounging a moment on the old gray fence to note the play of light and
shadow on the birch bolls. Your eye lingers restfully on the wonderful
mixture of soft colors that no brush has ever yet imitated, the rich old
gold of autumn tapestries, the glimmering gray-green of the mouldering
stump that the fungi have painted. What a giant that tree must have
been, generations ago, in its days