I WATCHED a squirrel bury a chestnut the other day in a little park near my home in Brooklyn. He was holding the big nut in his long-fingered hands when he saw me out of the corner of his eye. He froze, as if considering whether or not to abandon his plan -- to bury the nut, I suppose -- or to ignore me and continue.

It was almost insulting how this city squirrel, far tamer than the ones I'd grown up with, apparently decided I was of no consequence and got on with the job (which was nice for me because I'd never seen such a thing before in my life).

The squirrel set his nut aside and began to dig -- not more than five feet from my shoes. He dug a hole so deep his little arms soon disappeared, and then his head (it was a large nut, after all, that he was about to bury). Then he quickly straightened up, grabbed the nut, put it in the hole and began scooping the soft soil back into the hole with the care of a master gardener. When the hole was filled, he patted down the soil, then proceeded to pound it with his arms like a miniature jackhammer. (He must have been trained in the old rose-planting method, in which you really stomp on the soil.) Then he scooped some leaves over the spot and was off.

I was suddenly full of questions: Would he remember where the nut was? Or would he just get lucky and find it? Or would some other squirrel find this nut and this squirrel would find that squirrel's nut and so on. Or would most of the squirrels forget most of their nuts and thus, as all those acorns sprouted into tiny oaks, contribute to the reforestation of Brooklyn?