Eleanor Tyrrell

“ Occasionally in bitter weather, or in early spring (when food is most scarce) , they will furtively creep back to the old squirrel-house—the door of which is always open—to steal the secreted nuts of [13] the Fritz family. And, as proof of their domestic felicity, comes sometimes a mysterious and beautiful young black-tailed squirrel—a tail orange-tipped, with delicate markings of gray.
Is it possible that these two fiery-red beings have produced a creature so unlike themselves? I think it is. Red-haired human parents sometimes have black-haired children, so why should not squirrels? ”

“ When I turned my attention to Peter, he suddenly leapt out and flew round the room in an agony of terror. He scrambled somehow up the portière over the door, where he used to go to hide long ago in his babyhood, and then fell with a scream. He would not let me pick him up, but pantingly struggled out of my reach. After a time the poor little thing somehow found his way to the old serge bag behind the curtain.
I tried to feed Ruby with warm sweetened milk, but scarcely a drop went down. Her little body was just skin and bone. She feebly snuggled away into the farthest corner of the cosy. ”

“ She grew as emaciated as he, and as painfully feeble. Morning after morning it was more and more difficult to her to clamber down from her sleeping-box, and worse to clamber up again. She, too, lost strength even to crack her nuts. In vain I bought grapes and every dainty I could think of.
It was too pitiful to see them. Squirrels, as a rule, will rarely or never eat together—as one springs up another springs down. If these two happened to be feeding at the same hour, it was always in different parts of the cage or of my room. ”

“ I thought squirrels were such hardy little animals. The year before, Bunty and Fritz had lived happily [48] through the same conditions, and been healthy and well all the time. I did not take into account that both these squirrels, being so tame and confiding, were never afraid to come inside the room, and often spent the coldest nights sleeping together in the serge bag hanging behind the curtains. This must have kept them very warm all night. Peter and Ruby were, on the contrary, so wild and timid that nothing would induce them to remain long in my room. ”

“ Fritz was perfectly well and strong out in the open, bounding about from tree to tree, and voraciously hungry whenever he visited the stump or the nut traps.
Still I never guessed that Peter was suffering from a chill. “Squirrels,” I read in a natural history book—no natural history books tell one much about them—“squirrels invariably die of one thing, and that is inflammation of the lungs; and nothing can cure them—they die in a very few days.” ”

“ I stood beside her there for ten minutes, till she had finished all the provender except one cob nut, which she carefully hid in the ivy. Then she raced down to coquette with poor Laurence, who in his garden-cage was doing his wild best to excite her attention. Round and round the wire she darted, sniffing nose to nose with him and “twizzling” her plumy tail. ”

“ Thus I recollect bemoaning my little Fritz’s miserable and mangy appearance in the month of July, after six months of liberty. And I said in “How I Tamed the Wild Squirrels” that I thought these little animals, given proper food and space for exercise, are happier and better off in captivity than when running wild. I have since learned that all male adult squirrels look [14] miserable and mangy in July, because they are then “changing their tails.”
One hears people exclaim: “I have just seen a dear little squirrel. It must be quite a baby, for it had no hair on its tail.” ”

“ As she grew to maturity she proved herself entirely a Surrey squirrel. There was no tint of orange or gray about her, and she remained when full-grown as small and dainty as the rest, showing not a sign of the German larger, coarser breed.
Besides, had Fritz been her father, she [19] would not have disappeared from the wood. Young squirrels remain with their parents, I am told, for a year. Fritz had been assiduous in his attentions to a very charming squirrel with a lovely tail, whom for some time I had called Mrs. Fritz, but she too vanished in September 1913 and left him master of the wood. ”

“ In the summer, I have heard them cracking nuts at 8 p.m. I think they all sleep from about 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., winter or summer.
I often came upon Fritz having forty winks, on a comfortable branch sheltered from the wind, in the daytime. Squirrels’ claws are so strong and flexible, and cling so firmly, [41] that there is no danger of their falling from any perch, awake or asleep.
It was very interesting and amusing to watch Ruby as she became more and more used to seeing me about. I would open the casement into the squirrel cage, and go back to bed and watch. ”

“ Peter’s little fore paw was over Ruby’s neck, and their piteous helplessness and feebleness were very touching.
It may be asked, why did I not take them [55] into the warmth of my room when I first noticed something amiss? But I was afraid of adding to their distress—I was so firmly convinced that animals prefer to be let alone when they are out of sorts, and that nature cures in her own way with plenty of sleep. The nesting-box was six or seven feet from the floor of the cage and difficult to get at, through perches and the branches of the shrub that grew up inside against the wall. ”

“ We put the package down for a moment upon the sofa, when, to our amusement and relief, there immediately came forth squeaks and grunts of expostulation.
“Poor little fellow! how cramped he must be,” we exclaimed; and proceeded forthwith to place him, box and all, within the spacious squirrel-house in the garden. This was safely accomplished by Smithers, good man—as kind and interested in my pets as ever.
In this abode Laurence remained till the 2nd May, when I set him free altogether. ”

“ Cob nuts or walnuts he could not tackle, but almonds were not safe from him, and monkey nuts he was determined to have. I saw him mount the cocoanut shell, and with his head on one side peer into the hole at the top. Satisfied that the coveted food was beneath it, he began to try to lift the heavy shell. With his little beak he pecked and pulled manfully at the outside fibre. He could just raise the shell, but not high enough to get what he wanted.
After a good deal of exertion, which only shuffled it about on the stump, he flew off for a minute’s rest and reflection. ”

“ Be it as it may, I was always certain that in a gale not a glimpse of a squirrel would be obtained all day. Torrents of rain, too, will deter them from scampering about; their tails get bedraggled and heavy and upset their balance. [24] I have known Fritz come in the rain, but it generally meant that the weather was going to clear. I have seen him out in a wild snow squall. He spent a quarter of an hour once on the roof of the garden squirrel-house trying to scratch his way in through the heather thatch where a rival lived, while the snow was falling so thickly I could scarcely see him. ”

“ It was bad enough to lose Rufina, but that Peter should look upon me as her murderer was the sharpest cut of all!
He was angry and horror-struck, but by [36] no means grief-stricken, however, for a few minutes later I heard him cracking nuts, busy over his breakfast.
To most of us when a tragedy like this happens, the feeling is “to have no more pets.” But Rufina had never been what Bunty was. She had never sat on my hand, or played with me, or come at my call, or nipped my fingers to make me quicker. She had not won her way into my heart as that first little Surrey squirrel had done. ”

“ When Miss Appleton kindly undertook to [28] illustrate my first book about the squirrels, though she stayed with us several times in order to sketch Fritz and Bunty from life, it was found necessary for her to have a squirrel model in her friends’ studio in London, where she was working at the time. A wire-netting place was therefore improvised on the roof, outside the high studio window in Kensington, and in due time came a package from Devon and Co. labelled “Live Squirrel.” ”

“ Fritz and Mr. and Mrs. Laurence; while the wild Surrey ones, the little natives, come to the garden from the firs on the railway cutting.
There is no doubt that Fritz, the German, with his superior strength and masterfulness, drove away that first little colony which I had tamed so wonderfully. Toto had met a tragic death, killed by a marauding cat. Tito and Tara and the dainty little thing I used to call Miss Fritz after a time took up their quarters elsewhere. I have since come to the conclusion that Miss Fritz was not Miss Fritz—more probably Miss Tito. ”

“ She preferred to remain where food was abundant, and where her comfortable sleeping-box kept her snug at night.
When at length she did venture forth with her husband into the unknown, she still stole [79] back for several nights to her safe shelter. But at last, I suppose, they built between them a nest in the wood, for I constantly saw Laurence very busily tearing strips of fibre from the trees just then, and the cage was finally deserted.
Squirrels are very busy in the spring stripping bark for making new nests, and in the summer this is sometimes carried on for remaking and mending the old. ”

“ There is great activity in the squirrel world. Young and old are busy storing and burying nuts.
Early in the dewy mornings they hie themselves to the hazel coppices, to the lordly beeches, and later they will strip the walnuts. Active little creatures, intent upon this their supreme instinct, I have known a pair entirely clear away the beech-mast under the weeping tree on our lawn on a September morning before breakfast—beech-mast which thickly covered the ground the night before.
Fritz and Laurence Housman, too, are now disporting the full glory of their autumn tails. Mrs. Fritz and Mrs. ”

“ He was a most devoted father. He plied to and from the nest where his little ones were [98] all day long, and when one remembers that a bird’s day at this time of year begins at 4 a.m., and lasts till 5 or 6 p.m., it will be admitted that this involves a tremendous amount of energy. Very occasionally did Robin Adair give himself the treat of swallowing one of the meal-worms which he was given. ”

“ He was furnished with a sleeping-box, with a hinged lid. I once saw him asleep, as my friend opened the top. Anything neater and warmer could not well be imagined. Wood-wool was tightly wedged round the inside of the box first, then came a thick layer of cotton-wool, all of which he had arranged himself. In the middle, a curled red centre, lay the squirrel fast asleep, his face completely hidden. [31] The box lid fitted tightly down over this compact mass, and the two little holes at either end, through which he crept in and out, were so small, I wondered how he could get any air at all. ”

“ After he had gone came the conscientious robin, who just now was hard at it feeding her newly-fledged young. I helped her, at intervals, all day in the performance of this duty, with currants, oatmeal, and cheese. Scarcely did she allow herself a morsel, so [96] intent was she upon the needs of her brood. As she waited expectantly for my dole another robin flew down. They did not fight, so I presumed this was a cock, and I watched his antics to attract her with considerable amusement. ”

“ He was thankful when the short winter day was over, and he could sneak behind the curtains in my room and snuggle into his blue serge sleeping-bag, remaining there till next morning.
I must explain that Peter was a little English squirrel, whom I had reared from babyhood. He was now about nine months old. Rufina was a lady, German, bought from Devon and Co. at Bethnal Green. At this time I had had her barely three months.
Squirrels hate a high wind. The noise in the trees makes it difficult, I suppose, to hear enemies about. Also perhaps they fear to lose their hold of the tossing branches. ”

“ I stuffed him with every dainty I had till he could eat no more, and insisted on hiding the rest in the ivy on the wall, where, as I knew, mice would steal it when night came.
Meantime Peter and Rufina lived in the big cage on the wall outside my other window.
They never became friends. As I have said in my former book, by the time the latter had been a fortnight in the cage she was completely mistress of the situation. She appropriated Peter’s sleeping-box, she stole all his best nuts, and should he dare to approach [23] her while she was eating, she routed him fiercely. ”

“ They generally choose damp rainy days for doing this, when the material they gather is full of moisture. Once, however, in a spell of prolonged hot dry weather, I was much struck with a clever device on the part of one of them, probably Fritz.
I found one morning two little bundles of stripped fibre thrust into the jar of drinking water inside the garden squirrel-house. (The entrance to this was always left open, and [80] the squirrels ran in and out for food and water.)
There was no mistaking these neat little bundles. I had too often watched Bunty, Fritz, Rufina, and Co. ”

“ I think we may disabuse our minds of the traditional belief in the wickedness of the cuckoo mère, and of the supposed grief and distress of the youngster’s foster-parents. It seems to me much more likely that, instead of considering it a misfortune to find a cuckoo’s egg in their nests, our British birds only hope for such luck, and swell with pride as they rear a magnificent chick, under the delusion that it is their own.
One very hot morning in June I was the [105] interested spectator of a mother tit showing her offspring how to bathe. ”