There's some little dispute about squirrels as tree-planters; that is to say as to just how they do it, for there's no question that they _do_ plant oaks and other trees. Thoreau, in his "Walden," gives the squirrel credit for doing an immense amount of tree-planting, but Ernest Ingersoll, in his article on squirrels in "Wild Neighbors," thinks the squirrel leaves comparatively few acorns or hickory-nuts, and that he doesn't forget where he puts them, as other writers on nature say. "They seem to know precisely the spot," says Mr. Ingersoll, "where each nut is buried, and go directly to it; and I have seen them hundreds of times when the snow was more than a foot deep, wade floundering through it straight to a certain point, dive down, perhaps far out of sight, and in a moment emerge with a nut in their jaws." But _how_ the squirrel knows it's there--that's the mystery! Read what Ingersoll says about it. The whole essay is extremely good reading, and will tell you a number of things to watch out for in squirrels that you perhaps never have noticed. In Pliny's "Natural History" you will find, among other quaint stories, one to the effect that mountain marmots put away hay in the fall by one animal using itself as a hay-rack--lying on his back with his load clasped close while he is pulled home by the tail. "Animal Arts and Crafts" tells what a simple little thing originated this idea. Many of the peasants of the Alps still believe it. Hornaday, in his "Two Years in the Jungle," gives an interesting account of how one of the four-footed knights in armor--the pangolin--does himself up in a ball, and how next to impossible it is to "unlock" him. Ingersoll, in discussing the various uses of tails in "Wild Neighbors," tells how a gerboa kangaroo brings home grass for his nest, done up in a sheaf of which his own little tail is the binder. An interesting four-footed burrower, when he can't rob a prairie-dog of his hole--or some other body smaller than himself--is the coyote. There is a long talk on the coyote and his ways in "Wild Neighbors." This little book also gives pictures of the different kinds of shrews in the United States, and a lot of detail about them and their little paws and their noses and their tails. It's a queer thing how systematic and prompt shrews and moles are in business. You can actually set your watch by them, as you will see in the same book. In the article on the gopher in the "Americana" you will find how the gopher got his name. Can you guess, when I tell you it's from a French word meaning "honeycomb"? CHAPTER VIII (AUGUST)