IN the series of nature studies, published in Forest and Stream's natural history columns, Tiny was briefly introduced to the public. Tiny is a red squirrel, the son of Bismarck. The latter was a grizzled old warrior, the hero of many a fierce battle. Why he gave the cabin dooryard to Tiny is one of the mysteries of squirrel life. He had held it against all squirrels, red or gray, for ten years, and now gave it over to Tiny to have and to hold, without reserve.
A return to Bismarck's life history may throw some light on this peculiar transaction.
Bismarck's family, April, 1900, consisted of a wife and four children. Mrs. Bismarck, at that time, left her children to the care of her husband, while she made a new nest in which to rear another family. It was Bismarck's duty to finish the education of the young squirrels and to marry off the daughters to young males of another family, and to locate his sons on territory which they would ever after own, and for which they would fight to the death.
Tiny was not half so big as his only brother. Perhaps that was the reason why Bismarck favored him, and brought him to the dooryard. It was an unusual act, for Bismarck insisted that his sons should remain on the territory upon which he had located them.
When Tiny had acquired full possession, he proved to be a "chip of the old block." His motto, "No trespass," was impartially enforced. He raced his brother, sisters, father, mother, as well as strangers, out of the dooryard, and fiercely attacked any squirrel that did not depart after the first warning. It was laughable to see Bismarck, the grizzled old warrior, run as if for life when caught trespassing by Tiny. When Tiny approaches through the tree-tops and finds a Squirrel in the dooryard, he stops and sounds his war-cry. This cry is long drawn out, and is something like the buzzing of an old wooden clock when running down and striking the hours. After this warning, he makes a rush for the interloper, and if he catches him the fur flies.
Tiny had a lively experience with a wharf-rat. The rat was a monster. What caused him to take to the woods is a mystery. Probably he was a rat Christopher Columbus, and had started out to discover a new world.
When he found my dooryard he seemed satisfied. From a rat's standpoint it proved to be "a land flowing with milk and honey."
Wheat, corn, meat, bird-seeds, with no bloodthirsty human being to make life miserable. After two days of feasting the big fellow disappeared, to appear again three days later with a mate. Doubtless the sly old rogue thought that he was able to support a family on the fortune he had discovered in the woods.
I trapped the small rat, but found the big one too crafty to enter a trap.
At first the rat did his foraging in the night-time, so Tiny had no chance to make his acquaintance. Later he became bold enough to feed in the daytime, which, in the end, brought him in contact with Tiny. I was talking to some visitors from one of the big summer hotels, telling them the history of the rat, while he was eating from a loaf of bread in the dooryard, when I heard Tiny's war-cry. I told my visitors to look out for a hot time. Tiny ran out on a limb about six feet above the rat, and told him in vigorous squirrel language that he was a thief and a robber. The rat looked up, wondering what the angry little animal could be, that was talking in an unknown tongue, and pounding the pine-limb with his hind feet. It never entered his head to be afraid of such an insignificant foe. Tiny ran down the tree-trunk, landing on the ground not four feet from the rat. The latter stood on his hind feet and squealed a warning.
A lady visitor urged me to drive the rat away. "Rats are great fighters," said she. "The poor little squirrel will be killed." I offered to bet on the squirrel, but before she could answer, the fight was on. Tiny caught the rat by the neck. For a few seconds all that could be seen was something brown whirling in a cloud of pine-needles. The rat soon found that his little foe was a cyclonic fighter, and he made desperate efforts to escape. He dragged Tiny to a stone wall, leaving a trail of blood behind. When he entered the wall, Tiny let go and returned to the bread and coolly proceeded to eat his dinner, none the worse for his fierce battle.
The rat did not return. He either died from the effects of Tiny's savage bites, or, if he survived, left in disgust.
"AGAIN THE PLUCKY LITTLE BUNTING SET ITS WINGS AND LOWERED ITS HEAD."
Tiny was not always full of fight. He formed a friendship for a young towhee-bunting after a singular encounter. The bunting was eating from a loaf of bread, which was staked down in the dooryard, when Tiny appeared. The squirrel thought that the bird would run away, but instead, the latter set its wings and lowered its head in preparation for battle. Tiny was astonished. He sat up, folded his forepaws on his breast, and looked on the gamy little bunting with wide-eyed wonder. The bunting soon turned to the bread. Tiny brought his forepaws down hard on the ground, evidently to frighten the bird. Again the plucky little bunting set its wings and lowered its head. Again Tiny sat up and looked the little fellow over. This time there was a comical expression on the face of the squirrel that said as plain as words could tell that he appreciated the situation. That he admired the pluck of the bunting was evident by his action. He crept quietly to the opposite side of the loaf of bread, and allowed the bunting to eat unmolested. After this the two would eat together whenever they chanced to be in the dooryard at the same time.
Tiny did not allow other buntings near his food, and I thought he would forget his bird friend when the buntings returned in the spring migration, but not so. He knew his friend at once, and chuckled some kind of a greeting, while the bunting said something in bird language that seemed to my ears to express joy.
The red squirrel is quick-witted and full of resources. If new and unusual conditions confront him he is equal to the occasion. I have had proof of this hundreds of times.
I will relate one instance: I feed hemp-seed to the birds. The red squirrels and chipmunks are fond of the seed, and unless I stand guard, will manage to get the lion's share. The chipmunks stuff their pouched cheeks, and would carry away a bushel every day if it was fed to them.
When Tiny is present, no squirrel or chipmunk dares to meddle with the food. He does not molest the birds, and I really think that he knows that the seeds belong to them.
Last fall I placed a wire netting over a shallow box, so the birds could pick out seeds, while the squirrels could not get their noses through the mesh. The chipmunks were puzzled, and one after another gave up in disgust, to fall back on bread and corn. When Tiny found the box he got mad all through. He crowded his nose against the wire netting, biting savagely meanwhile. I laughed, and Tiny instantly stopped his efforts and looked in my direction. All at once he got the idea into his head that I had blocked his game, and had caused the trouble. In three bounds he landed on the trunk of a pine-tree, and running to a limb just over my head, he told me in wicked squirrel language just what he thought of me. In his anger he pounded the limb with his hind feet, stopping now and then to charge down the tree-trunk, as if he were about to attack me.
After ten minutes of this hot work he became quiet, except a sob, which he uttered from time to time. Finding that I would not help him, he returned to the box. He tried the wire a short time, then sat up and folded his paws across his breast and fell into a brown study. Like a flash he came out of his trance, grasped the box, and turned it completely over, then he began to eat, saying something to me, while he jerked his tail in a defiant manner. After this, whenever he found seed in the box, he quickly turned them out. For a week or more I allowed him to have his way. I wanted my visitors to see how cute the little scamp could be on a pinch. Later I drove stakes across the box to hold it down. I returned one day to find that Tiny had managed to dig a hole beneath the box, and had gnawed through the bottom. I tried another scheme for the purpose of testing the intelligence of the squirrel. I stretched a cord between two trees, and half-way suspended a box open at the top. Tiny saw the birds eating from the box, and he quickly understood that it was another device of mine to outwit him. He ran up one of the trees, and tried the limbs that hung over the box. He soon found a slender limb that would bend under his weight and let him into the box. After he had used this highway several days I cut the limb away.
"MADE HIS WAY TO THE BOX, HAND OVER HAND."
When Tiny found a fresh stub instead of a limb, he understood what it meant. He knew that I was the guilty one, and he swore at me, if a squirrel can swear, for twenty minutes. His next move was to investigate the line where it was attached to the trees. He thought he could reach the box over the line, and started out. When about a foot from the tree, the line turned, and Tiny jumped to the ground. He tried this three times, and met with failure. The fourth time, when the line turned, he clung to it and made his way to the box, hand over hand. I thought he deserved a reward for his continued effort and intelligence, so since then I allow him to eat from the box whenever he feels like it.
Tiny made a cozy nest in November, of moss, leaves, and grass. It was in the top of a pine-tree that hangs over the cabin dooryard. Some wretch shot this nest to pieces when I was absent. I returned to find empty shells in the dooryard, and fragments of the nest hanging to the tree. Tiny made another nest in a near-by pine, and lives in it at this time. The past two winters Tiny made his nest in my summer house. Why he did not occupy the house this winter is a mystery. Perhaps he heard me say that I should take down this house and put it into a new log-cabin that I had in contemplation.
Tiny is a widower, and childless. His wife and children were shot to death by the gunners that swarm through the magnolia woods.
I think Bismarck is dead. In cold weather he made it a practice to sly up to the cabin, just at dusk, for a doughnut or a bit of bread. For some time I have missed him. I went to his nest, to find it shot to pieces. Still farther away I found Mrs. Bismarck's nest in ruins, and silence reigned in that part of the woods.
Tiny is now an orphan, a widower, and is also childless. He occupies in squirrel life the same relative position that the hermit occupies in human life. Tiny's misfortune has brought the man and squirrel a little nearer together.
With few exceptions, writers on outdoor life make it a point to denounce the red squirrel. They claim that he is a nest-robber of the worst kind. The most of this abuse bears the earmarks of the library. One author copies after another, without knowledge of the real life of one of the most interesting wild things of the woods.
Reliable observers have related isolated cases of nest-robbing, by the squirrel, which we have no reason to doubt. I believe the thing is most unusual, and happens only when the food supply is cut off. If a squirrel in the spring is face to face with a famine, he might be tempted to kill and eat young birds. I have no record against the red squirrel, after eighteen years' observation here on the Cape. In Maine for fifteen years I saw squirrels plentiful enough on my farm. A small fruit orchard, near the farm buildings, usually harbored several squirrels. Birds nested in the trees and reared their young unless a coon cat got them before they could fly. I never knew a squirrel to molest a birds' nest, and the farmers of that town never complained of them, so far as I know. When we farmers compared notes on bird destroyers we invariably agreed upon crows, snakes, and weasels.
I have before me a book on nature, which contains an account of the red squirrel. The author tells in a delightful way about the wild things, but some of his statements are based on imagination instead of observation. He bitterly assails the red squirrel as a nest-robber, but some things in his story lead me to think he has culled the library for his statements. This story may fit a chipmunk: "that the squirrel brought six chest-nuts to his store, which he emptied from his 'cheek pockets.'" I venture to say, that no man living ever saw a red squirrel carry six nuts at one mouthful. This squirrel has no cheek pouches like the chipmunk, and usually carries one nut, seldom two at a time. The author has his very bad squirrel come to a bad end. He was killed by five or six robins while he was carrying off one of their fledgelings. It is an excellent representation of swift retribution, but to any one who knows the fighting ability of the little red whirlwind it can be taken with a grain of salt. It would be impossible for robins enough to gather around a red squirrel to kill him. In my cabin dooryard, while I have been writing this article, a desperate fight has taken place. Ten crows, made bold by hunger, attacked Tiny and tried to take possession of a loaf of bread. The squirrel never flinched, but stood over the bread, and whenever a crow got over the dead-line, filled the dooryard with feathers. I did not interfere, but saw the fight from the cabin window. The black rogues were obliged to retreat when Tiny got downright mad. When the fight began Tiny did not try to hurt the crows. He would run at one and allow him to hop into the air and take wing. It appeared to me that Tiny was just scaring the crows away. When he found that they were in earnest, he got mad and made the feathers fly, and the crows had to leave to save their lives.
I am writing natural history just as I find it, from observation of the wild things. To some of these wild things I am caterer, protector, and friend. They do not object to my presence when engaged in domestic affairs, so my ability to pry into their secrets is increased in ratio to the confidence accorded me. The red squirrel is one of the wild things which I have thoroughly studied because I have had the opportunity to do so. When a writer asserts that the red squirrel is a poor provider, and without family ties, I know that his observations have been haphazard, and that he does not understand the life history of the little animal of which he writes.
The male squirrel assists his mate to fill a storehouse for family use and then hides stores for himself on territory which he owns. Most observers see the squirrel hiding nuts here and there, and jump to the conclusion that he is improvident. When there are nuts the red squirrel lays up a store for his family and for himself, so that he and his family are well fed through the winter. There are no emaciated red squirrels in the spring, which tells the story of careful provision. The young squirrels do not provide for themselves, as soon as big enough, as stated by some writers. The young born in April remain with the female through the winter. The male has a nest of his own, but if the weather is very cold he stays in the home nest with his family. The nest is intelligently constructed and the materials used are selected from supplies near at hand. Tiny's nest is made largely from moss that I use for packing. The nest is thatched with oak leaves so no rain can enter. Sometimes it happens that wood-choppers cut a tree that contains a squirrel's nest. J have examined such nests. The inside is lined with milk-weed silk and fine shreds of yellow birch bark. There is always a surplus of this soft material, which is used to stuff into the entrance to the nest. The squirrels shut the outside door to keep out the cold. I once investigated a nest in the top of a pine-tree, when the thermometer registered zero, and found the entrance packed with soft material. The squirrels knew all about cold weather, and had made arrangements to keep the nest warm, by laying one side material to close the entrance when necessary.
When I see an unfinished dwelling-house and know that the family therein must suffer in cold weather, I think of the cozy dwelling that the red squirrel provides for his little ones, and I ask myself if the human being is the only intelligent animal in nature's catalogue?