The next day they silently allowed me to take a seat. After a brief
stare they grew bold with curiosity and descended to the earth for a
closer investigation. Pausing for a sharp look, both suddenly exploded
with wild chatter and fled with a retchy barking to the tree-tops. In
less than a month they took peanuts from my fingers. They were easily
terrified by a loud noise or sudden movement. One day an acquaintance
came to see me while I was in the grove with the squirrels. By way of
heralding his approach, he flung a club which fell with a crash upon a
brush pile alongside these most nervous fellows. They fled in terror,
and it was two or three days before they would come near me again.
One year the grove cone-crop was a total failure. As a result, Mr. and
Mrs. Frémont temporarily abandoned their old home and moved to new
quarters on a mountainside about half a mile distant. The day they
moved I was by the brook, watching a water-ouzel, when they chanced to
cross on a fallen log near-by. In passing, one paused to give a hasty,
half-glad, half-frightened, chattery bark of recognition. They
hastened across the grassy open beyond as though they felt themselves
in danger when out of the woods.
They made a home in an old snag, using places that were, I think,
formerly used by woodpeckers. The afternoon of their arrival they
commenced to harvest cones, which were abundant on the spruce trees
around them. I often wondered if they made a preliminary trip and
located a food-supply before moving, or if they simply started forth
and stopped at the first favorable place.
The following summer they returned to their old quarters in the grove.
The first time that I saw them they were sitting upon a log daintily
making a breakfast of fresh mushrooms. They often ate the inner bark
of pine twigs, and once I saw one of them eating wild raspberries. I
never saw these, or any Frémont squirrel, robbing or trying to rob a
bird's nest, and as I have never noticed a bird disturbed by their
presence, I believe they are not guilty of this serious offense, as
are most kinds of squirrels.
Through eleven years I occasionally fed them. Apparently full-grown at
the time of our first meeting, they were active and agile to the last.
After eleven years they showed but few and minor signs of aging.
One was shot by a gun-carrying visitor. While I was dismissing the
gunner, my attention was attracted by the wailing of her mate when he
found her lifeless body. His grief was most pitiful; among wild birds
and animals I have never seen anything so pathetic. Almost humanly he
stared at his mate; he fondled her and tried to coax her back to life,
at times almost pleading and wailing. When I carried her off for
burial he sat moveless and dazed. The following day I searched the
grove, whistling and calling, but I never saw him again.
The Estes Park Region
The Estes Park Region