sacrificed. The end of a wild animal is always a tragedy—the pitiless law of the wilderness, supported by claw and tooth and fang, has so ordained.

Meeko and Bismarck were as usual, except that they carried a great many nuts and mushrooms up one particular tree. Determined to find out, I climbed, and there on her nest, pale and worn with the long vigil, but still cheerful, sat Kitchi-Kitchi.She would not let me lift her, protesting loudly when I tried it, but when I tickled her in the ribs she moved enough to give me a glimpse of the eggs under her. Very few observers have ever seen a Squirrel’s egg. They are about the size of a Turkey’s egg, a dark brown in colour, with a long, handle-like projection, fully as long as the egg itself, at the wider end. This undoubtedly holds the tail of the baby Squirrel.

Six weeks later she came down—a mere shadow of her former self. In three weeks more, the babies were able to come also, and they made a pretty group, playing in my dooryard and falling over themselves at every step, not yet having learned how to manage their tails. I would have tickled them, gladly, but I already had my hands full and I did not wish the new generation to acquire the habit.

Things went on as usual until late in the Fall. Summer lingered long that year, and the woods were a golden glory almost until November, but the Birds had gone and the Squirrels were making ready to follow.

One morning there was a great chattering, and I was so sure that preparations for departure had begun that I gave up my work entirely and went out to investigate. A few moments of close, quiet observation proved my hasty surmise correct.

From every conceivable corner were brought large, flat chips. They were fully six inches square and much worn, as if they had been used often. A depression in the centre was the only variation from the flat surface.

Such a time as there was! The woods seemed to be one solid Squirrel in multitudinous attitudes. The scene would have been very perplexing to any but a perfectly sober man, and at intervals I even doubted the evidence of my own senses.

The older and larger Squirrels dragged all the chips to the brink of the river, which flowed from north to south, and then, at last, I began to understand. So poor are our weak wits in comparison with the denizens of wood and field, whom, in our pitiable self-conceit, we call “the lower animals.” A Squirrel is normally a much higher animal than any of us, 

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