DOGS AND SQUIRRELS.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR, I have read with much interest the article on " The Balance of Wild Life in a Garden " in the Spectator of May 30th, and should like to supplement what the writer says on the dislike of the squirrel for dogs, and his disregard of cats, by an experience of my own. The house in which we live is quite in the country, and with us lived for many years a little brown dachshund, whose biography might be written in the same words as those which tell the story of the Skye- terrier of your article. He died at the end of one July ; and almost immediately the squirrels—who had been seen and beard in the woods and orchards near, but who had never ventured to the house—became the constant occupants of a verandah, hiding their treasures on the inner side of its rose- and clematis-covered supports, in spite of the presence of three white cats, who rejoiced as whole-heartedly and as quickly as the squirrels in the removal of their common enemy. The dining-room of our house has French windows opening on to the verandah, and neither the noise of the servants moving
about the room, nor the talk and laughter of those whose wants they were supplying—amongst whom there were nearly always children with their far-carrying voices—seemed in any way to disturb the busy and chattering workers, who continued to bring more nuts, or found new and safer places for those they had already stored away. Early in the summer of the following year a fox-terrier—coming from no one knows where—took possession of our house and all its occupants, and the squirrels have been seen there no more, nor have any more nuts been found in the verandah. Is not this rather curious, as the dog only makes his appearance when his indolent companions saunter down to breakfast between nine and ten o'clock. The cats are out both day and night.—I am, [Yet a cat will kill and eat a squirrel,—a feat above the reach of canine agility. We must presume that squirrels dislike the noisy and bouncing ways of dogs, and find cats more restful, even if more dangerous both from their quickness and power of climbing trees.—En. Spectator.]
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