THE SQUIRREL. 237

door of the hut. Mud and stones the beaver always carries
by holding them between his fore paws and throat.

“Their work is all performed at night, and with much
expedition. As soon as any part of the material is placed
where it is intended to remain, they turn round and give it
a smart blow with the tail. The same sort of blow is struck
by them upon the surface of the water when they are in the
act of diving. The outside of the hut is covered or plastered
with mud late in the autumn, and after frost has begun to
appear. By freezing it soon becomes almost as hard as stone,
and effectually excludes their great enemy, the wolverine,
during the winter.”

The Squirrel, The family of the Squirrel is a very large one
and with it are included the marmots, the prairie dogs, and
the anomalures, the latter of which form a sub-family. The
common squirrel, the variety familiar in England, is a pretty
little creature with its bright piercing eyes, and knowing look,
and its graceful bushy tail. It is one of the most agile of
animals, ascending and descending trees with the rapidity of
a flash and so sensitive, that it is said that if the tree upon
which its nests is only touched at the bottom it takes alarm
and seeks safety on another tree. It builds its nests in the
forks of branches of trees,—of moss, twigs, and dried leaves,
—and leaps great distances from tree to tree. The ground
squirrel is characterised by fine longitudinal black bands on
its back, which form a very pretty marking. It belongs
chiefly to North America. “It lives in villages under ground,”
says an American writer, “and plunders the farmers worse
than the gopher. Every two months the ground squirrel
breeds and neither State premiums nor strychnine diminishes
its numbers. It levies an assessment of thirty per cent.
on the profits of a wheat crop in many sections.”

The flying squirrel, also common in the United States, has
a membranous skin which extends from the fore limbs along
the body to the hind limbs by which its body is buoyed up