--- title: Foxes and squirrels — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Foxes and squirrels», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Two wild animals live right next to us in parks and gardens, and both are cleverer than they look. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Foxes and squirrels # Foxes and squirrels Lesson 215 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/0/) — Two wild animals live right next to us in parks and gardens, and both are cleverer than they look. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/2/) — A squirrel is a rodent with teeth that never stop growing, and in autumn it buries thousands of nuts one by one, finding many again by memory and smell. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/3/) — The ones it forgets grow into new trees, so a squirrel is really a forgetful gardener planting forests, and if another squirrel is watching, it may even pretend to bury a nut to fool the thief. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/4/) — Foxes scream at night, mostly in winter, to attract mates and mark territory, and people sometimes mistake the sound for a person screaming. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/5/) — A fox can hear a small animal under snow, leap high and pounce nose first; some scientists think foxes may use the Earth's magnetic field to aim, but this is not yet proven. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/6/) — Urban foxes live in towns because there is food, shelter and few enemies, but they are wild animals and should not be fed by hand or petted. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/7/) — In many stories foxes are sly tricksters, because real foxes are clever and adaptable, eat almost anything and learn quickly. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/8/) — Foxes belong to the dog family, but they hunt alone and climb like cats, and fox cubs are born blind in an underground den. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/9/) — Squirrels bury thousands of nuts in autumn as food for winter and find many again by memory and smell; the forgotten ones can grow into trees. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/10/) — A squirrel can run down a tree head first because its back ankles turn round so its claws hook into the bark facing up. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/11/) — A squirrel's bushy tail helps it balance and works as a blanket and an umbrella. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/12/) — Studies of grey squirrels found that when another squirrel is watching, a squirrel may pretend to bury a nut to fool the thief, which suggests it plans ahead. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/13/) — Grey squirrels were brought to Britain from North America; they carry a virus deadly to red squirrels and take their food, so reds now live mostly in Scotland and a few other places such as islands. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/14/) — Squirrels are skilled acrobats that solve puzzles to reach bird feeders, and some people build squirrel obstacle courses for fun. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/215-foxes-and-squirrels/15/) — Squirrels are rodents whose front teeth grow all the time, about fifteen centimetres a year, and gnawing hard nuts wears them down. - ← previous: [Hedgehogs: spines, hibernation and how to help them](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/214-hedgehogs-spines-hibernation-and-how-to-help-them/) - next →: [Garden birds: robins, blackbirds, tits and feeders](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/216-garden-birds-robins-blackbirds-tits-and-feeders/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)