Free Republic

Prince William has revealed that his father, Prince Charles, is absolutely obsessed with a certain type of squirrel. “He is completely infatuated by the red squirrels that live around the [Birkhall] estate in Scotland,” Prince William told Country Life in a special edition of the British weekly guest-edited by Prince Charles himself. He added that the Prince of Whales likes them, “to the extent that he’s given them names and is allowing them into the house.”Prince Charles, who celebrated his 70th birthday Wednesday, noted that the rodents are “incredibly special creatures.”

So much of England seemed strangely, even eerily familiar. Some of that may have been psychological; one of the reasons I'd come to the island was to see and smell and walk the rolling green hills of the English Midlands where my ancestors lived for who-knows-how-many generations and from which, 400 years ago, one of them gathered his family and crossed the Atlantic for a new life in The New World. Part of it certainly was the sight of so many everyday "American" symbols — Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Coke, Pepsi and Marlboro. Even the language was, for...

<p>Gray squirrels' faulty memories turn out to be good for forests, but the nut-hoarding habits of their red cousins are not, according to scientists.</p> <p>The bane of suburban gardeners and backyard bird feeders, the ubiquitous gray squirrel buries walnuts, acorns and other nuts across the landscape in a pattern called "scatter hoarding," a Purdue University researcher said Tuesday.</p>