upon it this year; the squirrels might be seen
almost any hour in the day darting about the branches of that
tree, hunting the green nuts, and in early September the last nut
was taken. They carried them away and placed them, one here and
one there, in the forks of the apple-trees. I noticed that they
did not depend upon the eye to find the nuts; they did not look
the branches over from some lower branch as you and I would have
done; they explored the branches one by one, running out to the
end, and, if the nut was there, seized it and came swiftly down.
I think the red squirrel rarely lays up any considerable store,
but hides his nuts here and there in the trees and upon the
ground. This habit makes him the planter of future trees, of
oaks, hickories, chestnuts, and butternuts. These heavy nuts get
widely scattered by this agency.

One morning I saw a chipmunk catch a flying grasshopper on the
wing. Little Striped-Back sat on the wall with stuffed pockets,
waiting for something, when along came the big grasshopper in a
hesitating, uncertain manner of flight. As it hovered above the
chipmunk, the latter by a quick, dexterous movement sprang or
reached up and caught it, and in less than one half-minute its
fanlike wings were opening out in front of the captor's mouth and
its body was being eagerly devoured. This same chipmunk, I think
it is, has his den under the barn near me. Often he comes from
the stone wall with distended cheek-pouches, and pauses fifteen
feet away, close by cover, and looks to see if any danger is
impending. To reach his hole he has to cross an open space a rod
or more wide, and the thought of it evidently agitates him a
little. I am sitting there looking over my desk upon him, and he
is skeptical about my being as harmless as I look. "Dare I cross
that ten feet of open there in front of him?" he seems to say. He
sits up with fore paws pressed so prettily to his white breast.
He is so near I can see the rapid throbbing of his chest as he
sniffs the air. A moment he sits and looks and sniffs, then in
hurried movements crosses the open, his cheek-pockets showing
full as he darts by me. He is like a baseball runner trying to
steal a base: danger lurks on all sides; he must not leave the
cover of one base till he sees the way is clear, and then--off
with a rush! Pray don't work yourself up to such a pitch, my
little neighbor; you shall make a home-run without the slightest
show of opposition from me.