Squirrels make pretty pets, and when captured young can be tamed, and often become very affectionate. A young squirrel may be allowed to run about the room, and it will often be found curled up fast asleep in mamma's work-basket, or papa's pocket, or some other funny hiding-place. As it grows older it becomes more mischievous, and must be kept in a cage, or books, furniture, and everything in the room will bear the marks of its sharp little teeth. It belongs to the order _Rodentia_, or gnawing animals, and if kept in confinement, must be given a plenty of hard-shelled nuts to use its teeth on. Its cage should also be kept very clean, for the squirrel is the neatest little beast imaginable, and spends much time at its toilet. It is sad to think that this innocent, playful denizen of the woodlands should have many and deadly enemies. Even in the forests of inhabited regions, from which wild beasts have been driven, hawks and owls are ever on the watch to pounce upon it; and in the wild woods, especially in cold countries, where the squirrels are most plentiful, there are many enemies--pine-martens, which climb trees and spring from branch to branch almost as nimbly as the poor little squirrel they persecute, and the terrible wild-cat, which seeks its unsuspecting prey by night, or in the twilight, when the squirrels are gambolling merrily among the leafy branches before cuddling to sleep in their little nests. With sly caution the wild-cat creeps noiselessly through the underbrush, and with one savage spring it destroys the peace of some poor little squirrel family. Wild-cats, although they belong to the same great family as the quiet little pussy which likes to sleep on the hearth-rug, are considered by naturalists to be an entirely different species. They are much larger than the domestic cat, and have a short, stubbed, and very bushy tail. They are terrible enemies of birds and all the small inhabitants of the forest, and will often attack animals larger than themselves. They pass most of the day stretched out upon some large limb of a tree, sleeping, after the fashion of cats, with one glistening eye always on the watch for prey. At night they descend, and creep through the underbrush, searching for food. They are very skillful at fishing, and are often found near large ponds, where they watch not only for fish, but for all kinds of water-birds which haunt the surrounding marshes.