claimed, when he had looked around him for half a
minute, "I see those delicious buds are beginning to sprout. Nobody can
tell how I long for some fresh green food again! Nuts and acorns are
all very well, but then they are _terribly dry_. Here goes for a leap,
then!"

[Illustration: THE SQUIRREL. Page 4.]

So saying, the active little fellow sprang from his hole, and if you
had seen him, you would have thought that no animal without wings could
have ventured upon such a leap without being dashed to pieces upon the
ground. But Brush had nothing to fear; for though he had no wings, he
knew that his beautiful bushy tail, and his legs, stretched out
straight from his body, would bear him up in the air, and prevent his
falling too heavily. Then he had very strong legs for his size,
especially his hind legs, and his claws were so sharp and hooked, that
he could skip along the boughs, without the least danger of falling
off, and he could even run up and down the perpendicular trunks of
trees, almost as easily as we can walk upon the level ground.

So when Brush leaped from the entrance of his hole, instead of falling
to the earth, he pitched lightly upon a bough of the tree a long way
below him, and ran along it for a short distance. Then he leaped to
another bough still lower, from the end of which, he very easily
reached the next tree, and so on, from tree to tree, till he found
himself in a well-known grove of young larches, at some distance. Here
he immediately fell to work, nibbling the fresh green buds and tender
bark. He sat upright, as squirrels generally do when they are eating,
using his fore-feet as hands to hold his food, and very pretty he
looked. But I think, that, if the gamekeeper had seen him injuring the
young trees,[1] he would not have been very well pleased, and perhaps
he would have put his gun to his shoulder and shot poor little Brush,
if he had not received orders to the contrary. For though his master
knew that the squirrels injured his young trees sometimes, he would not
allow them to be killed.

[1] I should be sorry to bring a false accusation against the
squirrels, the most beautiful and entertaining of all the British
quadrupeds. But the whole truth must be told. They _do_
occasionally injure young trees by feeding on the buds and bark;
and a relation of mine, who has an estate in the West of England,
informs me that his plantations have suffered considera