PICTURESQUE HOME OF A CONNECTICUT WOODCHUCK
This is the truly artistic residence of a Connecticut woodchuck which I found in a rocky knoll by the wayside during a summer vacation at Kent and reproduced as well as I could with my fountain-pen. Mr. W. as he often does in digging his burrows, had availed himself of the protection of the roots of a tree. Here there were two projecting roots, forming a curious arch over the doorway, which was tastily decorated by a little overhanging vine, on its way up the knoll, along the stones, and up the foot of the tree.
When Winter finally sets in, the chipmunks get very drowsy and go up to bed. And there they stay until Spring—one great long nap, except that they wake up and stir around occasionally on bright days and if it happens to warm up a little.
"Such sleepyheads!" you say. "And what about all those nuts? I should think they'd be fine for Winter parties."
They would, I dare say. But you know a body doesn't have much of an appetite when he doesn't get any outdoor exercise, and that's why the chipmunks only take a few bites now and then, during the Winter. And, besides, if they ate up everything in the Winter—you know how folks eat at parties—what would they do in the Spring, with no good nuts lying around on the ground, as there are in the Fall; and nothing else to be had that chipmunks care about? So they keep most of the nuts and seeds and things for the great Spring breakfast, and all the other meals, until berries are ripe. The berries they eat until the next nut harvest comes along.
Until then, you see, they haven't much of anything to do but play around and sit in the sun and chat. So why shouldn't they?
HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY
You will find some most readable things about foxes in Burrough's "[Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers]"; Comstock's "Pet Book"; Cram's "Little Beasts of Field and Wood"; Wright's "Four-Footed Americans"; Jordan's "Five Tales of Birds and Beasts"; Long's "[Ways of Wood Folk]"; and Seton's "[Wild Animals I Have Known]."
Comstock's "Pet Book" also tells about the prairie-dog; and Seton, in his "[Wild Animals I Have Known]," tells about "The Prairie Dog and His Kin."
It's a very common superstition among English country folk that shrews always drop dead if they attempt to cross a road. How do you suppose such a strange idea ever got started? Allen, in his "Nature's Work Shop," reasons it out, and his reasons seem very plausible. It's a fact that their dead bodies are nearly always found in roadways. You'll also find some interesting information about shrews in Johonnott's "Curious Flyers, Creepers and Swimmers" and Wright's "Four-Footed Americans."
There's some little dispute about squirrels as tree-planters; that is to say as to just how they do it, for there's no question that they do plant oaks and other trees. Thoreau, in his "[Walden]," gives the squirrel credit for doing an immense amount of tree-planting, but Ernest Ingersoll, in his article on squirrels in "Wild Neighbors," thinks the squirrel leaves comparatively few acorns or hickory-nuts, and that he doesn't forget where he puts them, as other writers on nature say. "They seem to know precisely the spot," says Mr. Ingersoll, "where each nut is buried, and go directly to it; and I have seen them hundreds of times when the snow was more than a foot deep, wade floundering through it straight to a certain point, dive down, perhaps far out of sight, and in a moment emerge with a nut in their jaws."
But how the squirrel knows it's there—that's the mystery! Read what Ingersoll says about it. The whole essay is extremely good reading, and will tell you a number of things to watch out for in squirrels that you perhaps never have noticed.
In Pliny's "Natural History" you will find, among other quaint stories, one to the effect that mountain marmots put away hay in the fall by one animal using itself as a hay-rack—lying on his back with his load clasped close while he is pulled home by the tail. "Animal Arts and Crafts" tells what a simple little thing originated this idea. Many of the peasants of the Alps still believe it.
Hornaday, in his "Two Years in the Jungle," gives an interesting account of how one of the four-footed knights in armor—the pangolin—does himself up in a ball, and how next to impossible it is to "unlock" him.
Ingersoll, in discussing the various uses of tails in "Wild Neighbors," tells how a gerboa kangaroo brings home grass for his nest, done up in a sheaf of which his own little tail is the binder.
An interesting four-footed burrower, when he can't rob a prairie-dog of his hole—or some other body smaller than himself—is the coyote. There is a long talk on the coyote and his ways in "Wild Neighbors." This little book also gives pictures of the different kinds of shrews in the United States, and a lot of detail about them and their little paws and their noses and their tails.
It's a queer thing how systematic and prompt shrews and moles are in business. You can actually set your watch by them, as you will see in the same book.
In the article on the gopher in the "Americana" you will find how the gopher got his name. Can you guess, when I tell you it's from a French word meaning "honeycomb"?