The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-16
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their stores of nuts which they are ever
 now putting away.
 The red squirrels are the hardest O.
 the lot, and though they are making
 their nests as warm and snug as any
 they will only use them at night, fol
 nothing in the shape of weather car
 keep these little fellows indoors in the
 daytime. Most red squirrels live 1T
 holes in trees, but some build theil
 nests in the branches, and those in the
 far north burrow in the ground like
 chipmunks. The red squirrel is. very
 provident, and I know some old stumps
 which contain more nuts than will be
 eaten this winter, unless some small boy is lucky enough to find them. Chickaree takes no chances. Suppose the winter should last for six months D I can imagine him saying, "It never has done yet, but it might" Some red squirrels I have in captivity in a large empty room made nest in a basket which I hung up on purpose They have carried in nuts until the basket is almost full, and there is barely room for the squirrels themselves.
 The chipmunks began to carry food to their burrows in the summer, and they kept it up until the sharp frosts drove them in for the winter. They too, have warm nests several feet un derground, and part of their supplies are there. But most of the provisions are stored in little galleries nearby, so the hackhees will have to walk into the next room so to speak, when they want to dine. They have not limited them selves to nuts by any means for they carried in corn. wheat, buckwheat, acorns and probably several other kinds of food. I have some chipmunks in the same room with the red squir- rels, and several weeks ago I gave them a large packing-box filled with soil They began to burrow in it at once, and before the next morning ct was tunneled from end to end For some time they were busy carrying in corn, oats and hickorY-nuts but a few days ago they went in, blocked up the en- trance. and do. not expect to see them again until I dig them out in midwin- ter to see how they are getting along.
 The woodchucks, too, have retired to their holes in the hillsides and under stone walls, and the mounds of earth which they have left at their front doors is all we shall see of their work until they come out to nbble the young clover next year. They were vry fat whn they went in; they will be very lean when they come out, for they sleep the whole time. and consequently do not eat anything for several months.
 Amongst the busiest of builders at this season are the muslxrats. Many are leaving their burrows In the banks of the streams and ponds and are making big dome-shaped houses in the shallow water. Within stones throw rom my house. there is small pond md to-day I counted five of these nuskrat lodges standing amongst the which grow along the mar gin. Sometimes go down at night and watch them working in the moonlight. When I reach my hiding place, there 1 will not be a rat in sight; for cautious y as walked, my footsteps have been | iehlu, anu HtttilllE Dul IHt pditly uIl- shed houses, and the ripples dying out | lone the shore would lead me to sup | ,ose that muskrate had been working 1 here half a minute before. But I | vait, hidden by the reeds and mist, and | presently the surface breaks out in | cores of glttering lines of light the wakes of furry builders returning to | heir work Some come with their mouths full of leaves others with sticks nd others still with moss, worked into title rolls, and they toll up the sides f their dwellings, making them higher nd broader, and having deposited their argoes, launch themselves for another oyage. I watch them until my limbs re cramped, and perhaps in an effort Q etraighten them I craclle reed -ith my foot. Presto! When Tam Shanter cried. "Weel done, Cutty ark" the performance he was watch lg did not end more abruptly than oes mind As though the pond had cen struck by a hundred flashes of the spray flies upwards into 1e moonlight, and the muskrats have one and were it not for the widening nee of water which still sway stalks the bulrushes I might think I had cen dreaming.
 ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES.
 I