Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/279

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FLYING SQUIRRELS
261

let me put my hand on him; but as I approached within three or four yards he scrambled up the tree into the small branches at the top. He was going to take another flight, if the emergency seemed to call for it, and the higher he could get, the better. The oak was too big to be shaken, but a smaller tree stood near it. This my companion shook in the squirrel's face, and again he took flight. This time he passed squarely over my head, showing a flat outspread surface sailing through the air, looking not the least in the world like a squirrel or any other quadruped. Again he struck against a trunk, and again he ran up into the treetop. And again he was shaken off.

Four times he flew, and then I protested that I had seen enough and would not have him molested further. We left him in a maple-top, surrounded by handsome red flower clusters.

The flight, even under such unnatural conditions, is a really pretty performance, the surprising thing about it being the ease and grace with which the acrobat manages to take an upward turn toward the end of his