Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/195



" you know where there are any flying squirrels?" I asked a friend, two or three weeks ago. My friend, I should mention, is a farmer, living a mile or two away from the village, and, being much out of doors with his eyes open, has sometimes good things to show me. With all the rest, he has more than once taken me to a flying squirrel's tree and given me a chance to see the creature "fly."

This peculiar member of the squirrel family, as all readers may be presumed to know, is nocturnal in its habits, and for that reason is seldom seen by ordinary strollers. Once my friend, who was just then at work in the woods, found a hollow tree in which one was living, and we visited the spot together. I posted myself conveniently, and he went up to the tree and hammered upon it with his axe. Out peeped the squirrel at