18. What animals, birds, and insects are to be seen in the woods during sugar-making time? 19. Have you ever seen the tracks of animals on the snow in the woods? If so, make pictures of them and tell what animals made them. LEAFLET XLIX. THE RED SQUIRREL OR CHICKAREE.[66] BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK. [66] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. V, No. 2, November, 1903. "All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One would approach at first warily through the shrub-oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his "trotters" as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him,--for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl,--wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance,--I never saw one walk,--and then suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time,--for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect."--THOREAU. [Illustration] From contact with civilization some wild animals flourish while others are soon exterminated by association with man. To this latter class belongs the black squirrel. Within my own memory this beautiful creature was almost as common in the rural districts of New York State as was the red squirrel; but now it is seen no more except in most retired places; while the red squirrel, pugnacious and companionable, defiant and shy, climbs on our very roofs and sits there scolding us for daring to come within his range of vision. One reason for the disappearance of the black squirrel is, undoubtedly, the fact that its meat is a delicious food. The red squirrel is also good food at certain times of the year, but because of its lesser size, and its greater agility and cunning, it has succeeded in living not merely despite of man, but because of man, for now he rifles corn cribs and grain bins and waxes opulent by levying tribute on man's own savings.