monster, upon erect haunches, poses, the embodiment of perfect contentment.

But in the case of the Owl it was otherwise, Perhaps it was too large for the monster to attack, or, knowing from rumor of gossiping friends the reputation of the former for cruelty and murder, a conciliatory spirit was thought the best to adopt. No one knows the bitter character of the first interview, or whether a liking for each other sprang up from the beginning. Be this as it may, there can be no denying the fact that a friendship was cemented between the two animals, widely divergent in structural peculiarities as they are known to be, that gave hope of becoming long and enduring.

NATURE'S LITTLE STORE-KEEPER.

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NE of the most familiar of North American quadrupeds is the Hackee, or Chipping Squirrel, as he is sometimes termed, from the strange, quaint utterances which he emits while rollicking with his fellows or in quest of something to eat. He is a beautiful little creature, notable alike for the dainty elegance of his form and for the pleasing tints with which his dress is arrayed. His general color is brownish-gray upon the back, warming into orange-brown upon the forehead and hinder quarters. Five longitudinal black stripes and two streaks of yellowish-white adorn the dorsum and sides, which render him a most conspicuous being and one readily distinguishable from any other animal. His abdomen and throat are white. He is slightly variable in color according to locality, and has been known to be so capricious of hue as to become a pure white or a jetty black. But for the commonness of the species, which is found in great numbers in almost every place, his fur, from its extreme beauty, would long since have taken nearly as high rank as sable or ermine.

No quadruped is so brisk or so lively. His quick, rapid movements have not inaptly compared him to the wren. As he whisks about the branches of the brushwood and small timber among which he is chiefly met, or shoots through their interstices with his peculiar jerking movements, and his odd clicking cry, like the chip-chipping of newly-hatched chickens, the analogy between himself and the bird is strikingly apparent. Occurring in great plenty, and being a bold little creature, he is much persecuted by small boys, who, with

long sticks, and well-directed blows, manage to fell to the earth many a luckless fellow as he endeavors to escape his pursuers by running along the rail fences.

Hackees delight in sequestered localities. There they tunnel their homes, preferring some old tree, or a spot of earth sheltered by a wall or a bank. Their burrows are rather complicated affairs, running often to great lengths, so that the task of digging the animal out of his retreat becomes one of no easy accomplishment. Sandy patches of ground, on the outskirts of a woods, are not unusually chosen for burrows. A hole, almost perpendicular, is drilled into the earth to a depth of three feet, and is thence continued with one or more windings, rising a little nearer the surface until it has advanced some nine or ten feet, when it is made to terminate in a large circular nest, made of oak leaves and dried grasses. Small lateral galleries branch off from the main burrow, in which these provident little creatures lay up their winter's provisions. Wheat, Indian corn, buckwheat, hazel-nuts, acorns and the seeds of grasses have been found in their underground receptacles, a proof, were further evidence lacking, that they do not pass the cold famine months in a sluggish and benumbed condition. Several layers of leaves, aggregating nine inches in thickness, are often found over the entrance, as a protection from frosts, which are further prevented from intrusion by the sealing up of the mouth from within.

Everything is done by the Hackee in a business-like manner. In gathering his food, lest the sharp beak of the nut may injure his cheeks when he places the fruit in hist pouch, he nips off the point, and then by the aid of his forepaws deliberately pushes the nut into one of his pouches. Another and another are similarly treated, and taking a fourth between his teeth, he dives into his burrow, and, having packed them methodically away, returns to the surface for a fresh cargo. Four nuts are his load at each journey. With his cheek-pouches distended to their fullest capacity, and