. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE RED SQUIRREL OR CHICKAREE Teacher's Story Just a tawny glimmer, a dash of red and gray, \^as it a flitting shadow, or a sunbeam gone astray I It glances up a tree trunk, and a pair of bright eyes glow Where a little spy in ambush is measuring his foe. I hear a mocking chuckle, then wrathful, he grows bold And stays his pressing business to scold and scold and scold. â E ought to yield admiring tribute to those animals which have been able to flourish in our midst despite man and h
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE RED SQUIRREL OR CHICKAREE Teacher's Story Just a tawny glimmer, a dash of red and gray, \^as it a flitting shadow, or a sunbeam gone astray I It glances up a tree trunk, and a pair of bright eyes glow Where a little spy in ambush is measuring his foe. I hear a mocking chuckle, then wrathful, he grows bold And stays his pressing business to scold and scold and scold. â E ought to yield admiring tribute to those animals which have been able to flourish in our midst despite man and his gun, this weapon being the most cowardly and unfair invention of the human mind. The only time that man has been a fair fighter, in combating his four- footed brethren, was when he fought them with a weapon which he wielded in his hand. There is noth- ing in animal comprehension which can take into account a projectile, and much less a shot from a gun; but though it does not understand, it experiences a deathly fear at the noise. It is pathetic to note the hush in a forest that follows the sound of a gun; every song, every voice, every movement is stilled and every little heart filled with nameless terror. How any man or boy can feel manly when, with this scientific instrument of death in his hands, he takes the life of a little squirrel, bird or rabbit, is beyond my comprehension. In pioneer days when it was a fight for existence, man against the wilderness, the matter was quite different; but now it seems to me that anyone who hunts what few wild creatures we have left, and which are in nowise injurious, is, whatever he may think of himself, no believer in fair play. Within my own memory, the beautiful black squirrel was as common in our woods as was his red cousin; the shot-gun has exterminated this splendid species. Well may we rejoice that the red squirrel has, through its lesser size and greater cunning, escaped a like fate; and that pug- nacious and companionable and
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