The mountains of California . e Yellow Pine compelhim to adopt a quite different method. He cutsthem off without attempting to hold them, thengoes down and drags them from where they havechanced to fall up to the bare, swelling groundaround the instep of the tree, where he demol-ishes them in the same methodical way, begin-ning at the bottom and following the scale-spiralsto the top. From a single Sugar Pine cone he gets from twoto four hundred seeds about half the size of a hazel-nut, so that in a fewminutes he can procureenough to last a week. Heseems, however, to preferthose of the two Silv
The mountains of California . e Yellow Pine compelhim to adopt a quite different method. He cutsthem off without attempting to hold them, thengoes down and drags them from where they havechanced to fall up to the bare, swelling groundaround the instep of the tree, where he demol-ishes them in the same methodical way, begin-ning at the bottom and following the scale-spiralsto the top. From a single Sugar Pine cone he gets from twoto four hundred seeds about half the size of a hazel-nut, so that in a fewminutes he can procureenough to last a week. Heseems, however, to preferthose of the two SilverFirst above all others;perhaps because they aremost easily obtained, asthe scales drop off whenripe without needing tobe cut. Both species arefilled with an exceedinglypungent, aromatic oil,which spices all his flesh,and is of itself sufficientto account for his lightning energy. You may easily know this little workman by hischips. On sunny hillsides around the principaltrees they lie in big piles,— bushels and basketfuls. SEEDS, WINGS, AND SCALE OFSUGAR PINE. (NAT. SIZE.) THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 235 of them, all fresh and clean, making the mostbeantiful kitchen-middens imaginable. The brownand yellow scales and imt-shells are as abmidantand as delicately i^enciled and tinted as the shellsalong the sea-shore; while the beautiful red andpurple seed-wings mingled with them would leadone to fancy that innumerabli^ butterflies had theremet their fate. He feasts on all the species long Ijefore they areripe, but is wise enough to wait until they are ma-tured before he gathers them into his barns. Thisis in October and iSrovemT)er, which with him arethe two Ijusiest months of the year. All kinds ofburs, big and little, are now cut off and showereddown alike, and the ground is speedily coveredwith them. A constant thudding and bum^ung iskept up; some of the larger cones chancing to fallon old logs make the forest reecho with the nut-eaters less industrious know well what i
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectcaliforniadescriptio
