Lives Trees at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

This group of mammals is made up of some of the most curious creatures to be found in nature. In it are the anteaters, animals native to the American tropics, with a tubelike mouth through which a sticky tongue works collecting insects from the ground; sloths, also native to the tropics, which spend their lives trees hanging by their toes from limbs of trees in which they live; and the armadillo, an animal which lives trees encased in its own armor.

Place in cage piece of old, weathered limb, medium soft-shelled nuts (but see Nuts, above), evergreen bough, or chunk of plaster. The term tree squirrel implies that these rodents spend their lives trees in trees, which is not entirely true. They use trees for their nests and rearing of young, but they also spend much time on the ground in search of food. However, they never search too far afield, as trees provide them with their greatest protection. Tree squirrels usually are not patterned but are beautifully colored. They have large, bushy tails and large bright eyes.

Trees are so common and so important in our daily lives trees that their absence would be hard to imagine. Without trees the rise of civilization would have been infinitely slower and our present level could not be maintained. Primitive man would have had no tools such as clubs for hunting, no plows for tilling the soil, no canoes or boats for travel. Wood fuel made it possible for mankind to live in the cooler regions of the globe and to eat cooked food. Forests supplied the pioneers with most basic needs including their log cabin homes.