First came the gray squirrels, quickly followed by a large black one. We had never seen a black squirrel before. Soon others joined. The new arrivals were black with varying amounts of red on their tails up to covering their rear ends. I later questioned our camp host about this unusual coloration and was told the following tale: Many years ago before anyone could remember there was a colony of gentle red squirrels that lived in the woods. One day a large aggressive black squirrel came among them. Before long this squirrel had killed off all the red squirrel males so that he could have all the ladies for himself. Today there are no red squirrels left, but remaining as a stark reminder of deeds of the past, the red persists in the coloration of some squirrel’s tails. The next creature to come by, swam in from the lake. At first there was only a nose and a pair of eyes, followed by a long thin tail. As it crawled out onto the bank, it reminded me of a very wet rabbit, as it attacked the clover like a lawn mower. Our first encounter with a muskrat. Not the most popular of local inhabitants as they dig tunnels several feet in from the shore which leads back to a point under the water. These are used as escape routes from predators.