suddenly reared himself up and gave a most defiant chatter to someone.  This done he proceeded along the hollow finally disappearing in some small bushes.  For a few moments all was silent; then from the same direction that the first came, a second fox squirrel came running along in the same manner.  It then dawned upon me that they were playing!
     For quite a while I watched them, fascinatedly as they chased each other pell mell over the hill.  What graceful, quick creatures they are!  Up trees and down, over logs, on the ground, thru the air from tree to tree, they run, going as easily on the thinnest branch as on the most level ground.  What exultance and spirit they showed at the first warm weather after the long cold spell!  They had one course, over which they ran, and from which they never deviated.  Usually they commenced at the Beech opposite me; just west of it was a fallen tree of the same kind, over which they ran; coming to the end of it they turned down the steep side, to a giant beech which was scarred black by the weather.  Up this tree they would dash to a gnarled limb about halfway