GREY SQUIRRELS AGAIN.
An extraordinary instance of the animosities of the grey
squirrel reaches me from an observer in Chichester. A grey squirrel was observed storing nuts in a hollow tree near the house ; and a few days later from the same place were heard the loud cries of a bird, which proved to be a green wood- pecker or yaffle. The bird was seen to be hanging from the entrance of the hole, and was " screaming " loudly, to use the gardener's phrase. While a ladder was being fetched the bird, who had been thus caught for some quarter of an hour, managed to free itself and flew weakly away. I can well believe that the enemy was the squirrel. It was this rodent's persistent hostility to birds that persuaded the Duke of Bedford to clear it out of his park at Woburn. The animal would naturally be especially pernicious towards the hunting birds. Even the brown will occasionally take the young from rooks' nests.
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