ng inquiry how the squirrel knew the burrs would open
if left to lie on the ground a few days. Perhaps he did not know, but
thought the experiment worth trying.

One reason, doubtless, why squirrels are so bold and reckless in leaping
through the trees is that, if they miss their hold and fall, they
sustain no injury. Every species of tree-squirrel seems to be capable of
a sort of rudimentary flying,--at least of making itself into a
parachute, so as to ease or break a fall or a leap from a great height.
The so-called flying squirrel does this the most perfectly. It opens
its furry vestments, leaps into the air, and sails down the steep
incline from the top of one tree to the foot of the next as lightly as a
bird. But other squirrels know the same trick, only their coat-skirts
are not so broad. One day my dog treed a red squirrel in a tall hickory
that stood in a meadow on the side of a steep hill. To see what the
squirrel would do when closely pressed, I climbed the tree. As I drew
near he took refuge in the topmost branch, and then, as I came on, he
boldly leaped into the air, spread himself out upon it, and, with a
quick, tremulous motion of his tail and legs, descended quite slowly and
landed upon the ground thirty feet below me, apparently none the worse
for the leap, for he ran with great speed and eluding the dog took
refuge in another tree.

A recent American traveler in Mexico gives a still more striking
instance of this power of squirrels partially to neutralize the force of
gravity when leaping or falling through the air. Some boys had caught a
Mexican black squirrel, nearly as large as a cat. It had escaped from
them once, and, when pursued, had taken a leap of sixty feet, from the
top of a pine-tree down upon the roof of a house, without injury. This
feat had led the grandmother of one of the boys to declare that the
squirrel was bewitched, and the boys proposed to put the matter to
further test by throwing the squirrel down a precipice six hundred feet
high. Our traveler interfered, to see that the squirrel had fair play.
The prisoner was conveyed in a pillow-slip to the edge of the cliff, and
the slip opened, so that he might have his choice, whether to remain a
captive or to take the leap. He looked down the awful abyss, and then
back and sidewise,--his eyes glistening, his form crouching. Seeing no
escape in any other direction, "he took a flying leap into space, and
fluttered rather than fell into t