One of the most familiar of North American quadrupeds is the Hackee, or Chipping Squirrel, as he is sometimes termed, from the strange, quaint utterances which he emits while rollicking with his fellows or in quest of something to eat. He is a beautiful little creature, notable alike for the dainty elegance of his form and for the pleasing tints with which his dress is arrayed. His general color is brownish-gray upon the back, warming into orange-brown upon the forehead and hinder quarters. Five longitudinal black stripes and two streaks of yellowish-white adorn the dorsum and sides, which render him a most conspicuous being and one readily distinguishable from any other animal. His abdomen and throat are white. He is slightly variable in color according to locality, and has been known to be so capricious of hue as to become a pure white or a jetty black. But for the commonness of the species, which is found in great numbers in almost every place, his fur, from its extreme beauty, would long since have taken nearly as high rank as sable or ermine. No quadruped is so brisk or so lively. His quick, rapid movements have not inaptly compared him to the wren. As he whisks about the branches of the brushwood and small timber among which he is chiefly met, or shoots through their interstices with his peculiar jerking movements, and his odd clicking cry, like the chip-chipping of newly-hatched chickens, the analogy between himself and the bird is strikingly apparent. Occurring in great plenty, and being a bold little creature, he is much persecuted by small boys, who, with long sticks, and well-directed blows, manage to fell to the earth many a luckless fellow as he endeavors to escape his pursuers by running along the rail fences.