As I walked about in Salem, I heard a noise from above. High up in a nearby maple tree, a squirrel hung upside down expertly chewing at the seeds still attached to the end of the branch. When we climbed the tree, I remember a feeling of uneasiness up in the branches that is not shared by my furry friend. Upon seeing me, he hurriedly scuttled backwards up a branch no thicker than my finger, and watched me suspiciously. I wished that could climb like that squirrel, knowing that it is a ridiculous notion but thinking it just the same. When the squirrel scurried up the branch, a small helicopter seed pod was let loose and sent spinning towards the ground. I remember playing with these as a child and subsequently remember getting their sharp spines lodged in my fingers. I supposed that these were for protection from animals such as squirrels, however their effectiveness seems to have been brought into question. Perhaps this species of squirrel has evolved a way to ignore the spines, or maybe they were never affected by them in the first place. Maybe they learned some clever way of getting around them? Maybe that particular squirrel had had its buried nuts stolen by some other enterprising creature and was forced to gnaw on the uncomfortable spines?