Go where you will throughout the noble woods of the Sierra Nevada, among
the giant pines and spruces of the lower zones, up through the towering
Silver Firs to the storm-bent thickets of the summit peaks, you
everywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence. Though only a
few inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, he
stirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important than
even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath
him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch
feels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is
stimulated by this means it is not easy to learn, but his action in
manipulating their seeds is more appreciable. Nature has made him master
forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws.
Probably over fifty per cent. of all the cones ripened on the Sierra are
cut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees
perhaps ninety per cent. pass through his hands: the greater portion is
of course stored away for food to last during the winter and spring, but
some of them are tucked separately into loosely covered holes, where
some of the seeds germinate and become trees.
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