A Book of Nimble Beasts: Bunny Rabbit, Squirrel, Toad, and "Those Sort of People"English, Douglas
General
A Book of Nimble Beasts: Bunny Rabbit, Squirrel, Toad, and "Those Sort of People"
English, Douglas
Animals -- Juvenile literature
[Illustration: FOUR MOLES' NESTS TOGETHER. THE BIG HILLOCK
OF EARTH ABOVE THEM HAS ALL BEEN TAKEN AWAY SO THAT THEY
COULD BE PHOTOGRAPHED]
Another animal's nest which is easy to find is the squirrel's, but of
course it is no use looking for this anywhere but in woods and places of
that kind where you know there are squirrels about. A squirrel's nest is
in a hole, or fork of a tree, and always, always out of reach. When it
is in a fork of a tree it looks like an untidy bird's-nest, made of
rather big twigs. It has a soft, warm lining, though, and, if you can
get up to it, you may find the baby squirrels inside in June. If they
are furry you can take them away, for then they are quite easy to bring
up and tame.
[Illustration: THE SQUIRREL. "SQUIRREL MEANS SHADOWTAIL"]
Then there is the harvest-mouse's nest, which is the most beautifully
made of all, and is usually to be found in cornfields, built some way up
the stalks, and looking just like a bird's-nest except that it is quite
round and has no opening that you can see. One can't very well walk
about in a cornfield, but you have another chance of finding a
harvest-mouse's nest in the hay-time, for they often build in the hay,
and once I found one with babies in it, on a haycock, where it had been
thrown without any one noticing it.
[Illustration: THE HARVEST MOUSE'S NEST
The most beautifully made of all]
You have two chances, too, of finding a dormouse's nest, for this mouse
builds one nest for the babies, and another to sleep in through the
winter. Both of them are rather big compared with the harvest-mouse's
nest, and they are generally made of moss and leaves, often honeysuckle
leaves, which the mother dormouse seems to like, though I can't tell you
why.
The dormouse often makes a sleeping-nest at the side of a path through a
wood, and does not seem to fasten it very carefully, for one sometimes
finds it in the middle of a path, as if the dormouse had turned over in
his sleep and sent the whole thing rolling. It may be, though, that some
hungry animal has pulled the nest out, and thinking the dormouse dead,
preferred to take the chance of finding something alive and warm, and so
left it.
If you ever find a sleeping dormouse, which will feel quite cold, you
should take the nest and all and keep it somewhere out of doors. For if
you bring it into a warm house, it will wake up before its proper time
and very likely die; but if you leave it alone until the spring comes,
it will wake up as Mother Nature meant it to, and you will have a pet
which you will like much better than one which you looked at in a shop
window, and could not resist buying.
[Illustration: THE DORMOUSE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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