The squirrel feeds on nuts, acorns, beechnuts, bark, buds, and the young shoots of certain trees. But it is also very fond of fir-cones, which it nibbles right down to the core; and sometimes it will eat bird's eggs. In fact, this squirrel is, in the United States, one of the most dreaded foes of nesting birds, and they often attack it and chase it away from their homes. Early in the autumn it always lays up a store of provisions, hiding them away in a hole in a tree, or more often in several holes. Then, when a warmer day than usual rouses it from its long winter sleep, it goes off to its hoard and enjoys a hearty meal. These pretty little animals generally go about in pairs, and the little ones are brought up in a warm cosy nest made of leaves and moss. It is placed either in the fork of a lofty branch or in a hole high up in a tree-trunk, and it is so perfectly made that rain never soaks through it, and the wind never blows it away. THE GRAY SQUIRREL "This," says Mr. Hornaday, "is the most prominent squirrel of Southern Canada, New England, and the Eastern and Southern States southward to Florida. It ranges westward to Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas. Above, its color is clean iron-gray, which in southern specimens is mixed with dull yellow. The lower surface is white, varying to yellowish brown. Usually it nests in hollow trees, but when crowded for room builds an open nest of green leaves, or strippings of cedar bark made into a round ball. The young are usually five in number. The gray squirrel frequently consents to live in city parks, and becomes quite tame. It spends much of its time upon the ground, searching for nuts, roots, or anything which can be eaten." Here is a good place to repeat some other words of Mr. Hornaday's. "There is no other animal of equal size," he says, "that can add so much of life and cheerfulness to a hardwood forest or a meadow as a good healthy squirrel. _Why is it_ that American men and boys kill them so eagerly?... Surely no true sportsman or right-minded boy can find any real 'sport' in 'potting' squirrels out of the tree-tops." And we might add that too often the desire to kill leads men and boys to destroy other kinds of innocent animals, instead of treating them as friends to be enjoyed, and whose right to live is just as good as that of human beings. Kindness toward harmless animals helps to make us kinder to each other. FLYING SQUIRRELS So-called flying squirrels are found in some parts of the world; but like the colugo, of which we have told already, they do not really fly. They merely skim from one tree to another by spreading out the very loose skin of the sides of the body and then leaping into the air. In this way they can travel for perhaps two or three hundred feet. But as a rule they merely spring from branch to branch, just like the common squirrel.